Written by kelsey

Not for the first time at the Home of Football, we were about to witness a feeling of déjà vu, though after the first twenty five minutes we should have been totally out of sight against a bemused and disorganised Fulham side. Time and time again their defence was carved open and several chances fell to Nasri, Arshavin, Chamakh and in particular, to Song. Then on 14 minutes, a sublime piece of magic by our star player Samir Nasri gave us a wonder goal and surely we all thought that a cricket score was inevitable.

However, it was not to be, and a misunderstanding between Squillaci and Koscienly resulted in a clash of heads and the ball dropped to Dempsey who fed the ball through to Kamara,and he coolly slotted it past Fabianski. If Koscienly had initially stayed down, the game would have been stopped, but he had some sort of delayed reaction and slumped to the floor after the goal was scored. Djourou came on in place of Koscielny, and suddenly Arsenal seemed to completely lose their momentum. We gave the ball away cheaply and there was no fluidity in movement. Fulham began to dominate, Fabianski having to make a save from Kamara yet again.

This game was all about Nasri, scoring his eleventh goal of the season and what proved to be the match winner. It was a goal of which the great TH14 (watching from is box) would have been proud. Chamakh again had a fine game and just needs to add the shoot on sight policy to his game, but that will come as his confidence builds.

Arshavin showed he is returning to form and provided another assist, and Rosicky had a reasonable game, but the fact that it is 34 games since he last scored must be playing on his mind.

For once both full backs were producing decent crosses and Sagna had a most impressive game. The centre back pairing is still a worry and we definitely miss Vermaelen. Song still tends to go too far up the field, and this certainly wasn’t his best game.

RVP supplied the deft touch for the winning goal, but he is clearly not fully fit and Walcott seems to have regressed and made no impact on the game. We sit proudly on top of the league, and we have to thank the reactions of Fabianski in the dying minutes for that, but defensive issues still remain.

Player ratings added by Rasp

Fabianski 7

Clichy 7

Sagna 8

Squillaci 8

Koscielny 6     Djourou 8

Song 5

Wilshere 7

Arshavin 8

Nasri 9

Chamakh 7    

Subs

van Persie 7

Walcott 4