Arsenal restore five-point lead at top of table with comfortable win at Fulham

Fulham 0 Arsenal 3

Craven Cottage is generally considered to be a “good away.” The walk through Bishop’s Park from Putney Bridge tube. The river view. The genteel home support. It really was for Arsenal here, a victory to respond to that of Manchester City on Saturday not in doubt from the early running when Mikel Arteta’s team made it plain that they would be operating on another level.

It has been a stellar season for Fulham – Marco Silva has overseen an unexpected push for European qualification – but they were abject during the first half, pulling up seats for 11 and watching Arsenal sweep into an unassailable lead.

“We’re gonna win the league,” chanted the travelling fans after Gabriel Martinelli had made it 2-0 on 26 minutes, applying the finish to a lovely box-to-box team move, Fulham chasing shadows. It was supposed to be one of a clutch of tricky away games for Arsenal over the run-in – the others being Liverpool, City and Newcastle. But it was nothing of the sort, their lead over City back up to five points.

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Gabriel Magalhaes scored the first; the insistently brilliant Martin Ødegaard the third and that was that by half-time, Arsenal en route to a fifth Premier League win on the spin, 15 goals scored during the sequence. Up in the stands, Mick Jagger could smile. For him and his fellow Arsenal supporters, there was only satisfaction. It was a nice touch from Fulham to play Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones at half-time. They were the most accommodating of hosts.

The day had begun with talk of a selection headache up front for Arteta; it would ease when Leandro Trossard passed a fitness test to lead the line, albeit in the false way of the times. And it would end with Gabriel Jesus getting on as a 77th minute substitute for his first football since the World Cup.

It was interesting to gauge the tone of Marco Silva’s pre-match interview when he lamented the continued loss of João Palhinha to suspension and talked up Arsenal’s threats – their intensity, their proactivity, how they would do “lots of things we don’t like.” Silva feared the worst.

The numbers tell their own story about Fulham without Palhinha, who has surely been one of the signings of the season. It is now P4 L4 GA 12. Fulham put minimal pressure on the ball and a breakthrough goal for Arsenal quickly came to feel inevitable; even Fulham appeared braced for it.

It came in the 21st minute, Gabriel rising to head home from Trossard’s corner, shortly after Arsenal had the ball in the net only to be denied by an offside spot by the VAR. Granit Xhaka had released Martinelli up the left and, when he curled for the far corner, Bernd Leno pushed the ball out and into Antonee Robinson, who watched it bounce in off him.

Mercifully for Robinson, the VAR deemed that Martinelli had been fractionally in front of him on the other side when he began his run and, with the home crowd gleeful, the hope for them was that it would change the dynamic. Up until that point, Fulham had been horribly passive.

It did not. Fulham would get worse, much worse over the remainder of a desperate first-half for them, sleepwalking into Arsenal’s aggressive press, surrendering possession in dangerous areas, losing the duels, doing zero as an attacking force. It was as if Ødegaard was playing with his own ball while Bukayo Saka was imperious, Robinson no match for him.

Even when Aaron Ramsdale passed the ball to Andreas Perreira on 42 minutes, the Fulham midfielder moved away from goal before sending a chip over the crossbar.

Gabriel’s goal was too easy, Fulham’s marking a shambles, but Arsenal’s second was a beauty, began by Saka’s close control with men around him on the right of his defensive third and fired by William Saliba’s long diagonal. Trossard got around his man to cross; Martinelli jumped at the far post whereas Robinson did not.

Robinson’s nightmare would continue when Trossard’s cross sailed over him in first-half stoppage time, Ødegaard stepping inside him to finish and the only relief for Silva’s team was that the damage at that stage was not more scalding. Granit Xhaka took a heavy touch at 2-0 when clean through; Trossard shot wide after Robinson had been exposed and Leno saved from Martinelli amid statuesque Fulham defending.

Fulham did at least show their professional pride in the second-half and they were unlucky not to score. Ramsdale saved smartly from Bobby Decordova-Reid and Tosin Adarabioyo, with Aleksandar Mitrovic heading a corner against the crossbar in between times.

Arsenal moved down the gears but they still almost scored a fourth. Kenny Tete blocked from Martinelli after a slick counter; the substitute, Fabio Vieira, worked Leno and so did Jesus, after a give-and-go with Vieira. Jesus would beat the ground in frustration, Arsenal denied the cherry on top. Otherwise, it had been a feast. – Guardian