Arsenal 0 Fulham 0:ARSENAL REMAIN stuck in a goalless Groundhog Day. For Arsene Wenger it is becoming less a matter of nil desperandum than nil-nil desperation.
On Saturday his team drew their fourth consecutive Premier League match 0-0, this time with Roy Hodgson’s compact, slick-passing Fulham whose continuing failure to hit the target away from home spared Arsenal the further embarrassment of defeat.
As it is, their hopes of closing the gap on fourth-placed Aston Villa are starting to give way to anxieties about being overtaken in fifth by aspiring Everton. While Arsenal would not regard competing in next season’s Uefa Cup – sorry, Europa League – as much of a consolation for failing to make the Champions League, at least they would be in Europe.
It is 15 years since an Arsenal side last shared four successive scoreless draws in the league. That happened at the start of the 1994-95 season when George Graham’s team drew 0-0 with Leeds, Liverpool, Blackburn and Norwich, and the statistic was quickly forgotten once Graham had been sacked following bung allegations.
Wenger is unlikely to take the parallel that far, although another goalless encounter at West Bromwich tomorrow might find some of Arsenal’s supporters pining for the days of boring 1-0 wins.
Saturday’s match was not boring, far from it. The next best thing to a goal is the frequent possibility of a goal, and both Arsenal and Fulham created numerous scoring opportunities. To be fair to Arsenal, Mark Schwarzer, the Fulham goalkeeper, was called into urgent action on more occasions than his opposite number, Manuel Almunia. Schwarzer kept out a header and a shot from Robin van Persie, who saw another header glance off the far post with the goalkeeper beaten.
Yet Wenger’s team did not look right. With Cesc Fabregas, Emmanuel Adebayor, Theo Walcott, Tomas Rosicky and Eduardo all injured, Arsenal’s football was never going to be at its most fluent; but surely Wenger’s writ on good passing and movement runs right through the squad?
In fact, Arsenal’s good footballing habits were seen only in glimpses. One of their virtues under Wenger has been an ability to move the ball accurately and incisively at speed, but here only Andrei Arshavin regularly got the passing right.
The result was that Danny Murphy and Dickson Etuhu dominated the midfield for Fulham in a manner they would have struggled to achieve had Fabregas been there.
Wenger began with Samir Nasri supporting van Persie, Arshavin and Carlos Vela. But Nasri looked like a duck out of water and Vela fluffed a chance set up for him by van Persie at the end of the first half, so Nasri went wide and eventually Nicklas Bendtner was brought on to add a bit of power up front. All to no avail.
While the Emirates’ attention was increasingly focused on the labours of Arsenal’s attack, it was easy to overlook the ease with which Fulham had penetrated their defence earlier. Arsenal might have let in three in the first eight minutes. Simple through-passes sent Andrew Johnson and Simon Davies clear of a square defence, one to shoot wide and the other over, before Johnson missed what turned out to be Fulham’s best chance of the day after Bobby Zamora, whose dominance in the air was absolute, nodded him in.
“Fulham were the better side in the first 20 minutes and created more movement,” Wenger conceded. “After that we slowly took over but we always lacked a bit of sharpness.”
As to Arsenal’s goal-fast, Wenger is still working out the extent to which the problem is tactical, technical or psychological. “Today’s result is a big blow to us but it is difficult to assess,” he said. “However, problems don’t last forever and at some stage we will score goals because we have quality and we continue to fight.”
That may be, but for the moment Arsenal are fencing with feather dusters.
Guardian Service
