Arsenal 2-1 Fulham

Sunday, 12 August 07, 01:18 PM · Comments(1)

With Bielefeld 2nd in the Bundesliga and Tottenham losing to Sunderland, pretty much the only thing to make the weekend perfect would be for an Arsenal win against Fulham. After all, at the end of last season virtually the same Arsenal 11 thumped Fulham 3-1 at the Emirates. Despite the loss of Henry, all should be well. Van Persie is healthy, Fabregas is anchoring the midfield, the back four lead by Gallas, and Lehmann is solid betwe....

MY GOD JENS, HOW COULD YOU SCREW THAT UP!

Yes, that was a rather dumb move on Jens' part, and frankly, considering how we see folks screw up shots with acres of open space in front of them, a hat tip to David Healy is in order for putting that in. Regardless, being down 0-1 a minute into the match is not the thing one would envision the opening match of the season to be. However, the Arsenal got up and going after that, and began to pressure Fulham like expected, and deflected the few Fulham chances after that as expected. However, it wasn't until the controversial penalty that got Arsenal on the board in the 84th minute, and in typical Arsenal-at-the-Emirates fashion, sealed the deal in injury time by a goal from Alexander Hleb.

As far as I'm concerned, I was rather pleased with the performance, despite the Lehmann gaffe. As far as subsitutions were concerned, Walcott was serviceable as a subsitution for Eboue, but Niklas Bendtner continues to impress, as the timbre of the game changed significantly when he came on for Rosicky. Whether that can be attributed to Wenger changing the formation to a 4-4-2 can be argued, the Great Dane (Is calling him Scooby-Doo out of order?) rumbled about creating chances his entire time on the pitch. What's holding him back for really being a legitimate threat is his finishing skills. This was pretty obvious during the Emirates Cup, and was on display today, where he missed at least two legitimate chances. But it seems to be that problems like that can only be solved on the pitch, which seems to be a great place for ~~him~~ Scooby Doo to be.

Pass the Scooby Snacks, Shaggy, le Championat is on.

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