It has to be said that, however you look at it, Fulham are extremely fortunate to be playing this fixture. Looking absolutely useless for most of last season, they finally woke up and got their act together in the nick of time. Reading had the opposite - OK until the end, when they dropped like a stone - and are now in the Championship. Even with two new promoted teams to provide cannon fodder this season, there has to be a decent amount of money on Fulham to go down this time around - even given their spending to improve their squad in the summer.Despite spending a bit of money themselves, Arsenal find themselves starting the season with a weaker squad than at the end of last. Flamini, Gilberto, Lehmann and Hleb gone (which particularly tears a hole in the midfield part of the squad), and Nasri, Ramsey and Vela (and Mikael Silvestre - what the hell is that about?!) coming in. Walcott and others will obviously be a year better as they get older, but you do wonder how the squad will bear up this time, and whether those £1,000 season ticket renewals couldn't have been spent on at least one established midfielder. Maybe (hopefully) they still will be.
After this display, the money really desperately needs to be spent. Arsenal put in one of the most inept, not to mention disinterested performances I think I've ever seen. The main problem was in midfield, where the acute lack of depth and experience was painfully obvious to all (except, possibly, Arsene Wenger). We were over-run from start to finish, and this was only against Fulham - Denilson and Eboue in the middle just couldn't really cope. This struggle meant that we were on the back foot all game, and as a result didn't manage to create much at all. Fulham didn't play fantastically well, but we were worse. A big worry.
The winning goal was a bad goal to lose, Gallas allowing the scorer to steal in to the 6 yard line, and connect with the ball without really being challenged. But he wasn't the only player to have a shitty game, by a long way. Denilson was the major criminal, seemingly completely incapable of keeping the ball or getting it to another football player in a red shirt. The utter low point of the game came at 7:06pm, when Denilson committed a foul throw. A good summary of what a wretched game both he and Arsenal had - and the worst thing is that Arsenal's squad is so thin, he will be playing the next game after such a poor display, because there is no real alternative.
Cesc Fabregas is due back from injury soon, but even he is not the solution to the problem that we lack muscle and bite in midfield. When Fabregas and Diaby are injured (which Diaby is all the time), we are left with players like Denilson, Eboue, Walcott, Ramsey, Song and Wilshere to play in centre midfield - and they are simply not strong enough. When we are struggling to tread water in midfield, it does make creativity very difficult up front. The fact that 9 months ago we had Diarra, Flamini and Gilberto in this area of the pitch, and they have not been adequately replaced, means that it is glaringly obvious what the problem is. Worryingly, Arsene Wenger seems to be playing down just how desperately short we are in this area. One can only hope that this is to throw people off the scent of the imminent signing of reinforcements - if not, we could be in for a long and difficult season.
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