English FA Premiership/Fulham 0 Arsenal 4: The closest-run thing in the Premiership could decide whether Arsenal stay in the Champions League next season or Thierry Henry leaves Highbury for Camp Nou rather than Ashburton Grove.

Either way, the better Henry plays, as Arsenal strive to finish in the top four, the greater will be the sense of foreboding among their supporters that life in the new stadium may start without him.

To describe Henry's contribution to Saturday's relaxed rout of Fulham as a master class would be an understatement. He was a Regius professor patiently demonstrating football's subtler arts for eager undergraduates.

Fulham also learned, albeit by default, that given an inch Arsenal are still capable of taking 100 yards.

The principal contribution of Chris Coleman's side to a one-sided contest was to give the opposition the chance of some revision before they resume hostilities with Real Madrid at Highbury on Wednesday. Arsenal won at Craven Cottage much as they had beaten Real at the Bernabeu 11 days earlier, ruthlessly exploiting Fulham's failure to deny them space and time.

Fulham had been expected to give Arsene Wenger's youthful team a torrid afternoon. Their home record was the equal of Arsenal's and the previous visitors to the Cottage, West Bromwich, had been walloped 6-1 by the pace and aggression of Brian McBride and Heidar Helguson, the Icelandic striker whose belligerent style seemed calculated to spook Jens Lehmann in the Arsenal goal.

In the event, Fulham merely succumbed to the dictates of recent history, having lost at home to Arsenal in each of their four previous seasons in the Premiership and taken only one point from nine meetings, the gutsy goalless draw at Highbury two seasons ago when Edwin van der Sar's goalkeeping was inspired. On Saturday Tony Warner's saves, often with his legs, spared Fulham defeat by half a dozen or more as the defence melted away in front of him.

Henry's command was absolute. He scored twice, and there came a point in the second half when he appeared more intent on setting up tap-ins for team-mates than making further progress towards his next scoring record, whatever that is.

Fulham could not catch his shadow, let alone their man. Coleman thought Henry's performance was the best from an individual he had seen and Fulham's manager had Arsenal's captain to thank for breaking up a spat between two of his players, Zat Knight and Moritz Volz, as they left the pitch at half-time.

Volz, often stranded by Tomasz Radzinski's reluctance to track back, was frequently caught out of position by Henry and Freddie Ljungberg on Arsenal's left, not least when Henry opened the scoring from a narrow angle after Abou Diaby's pass had caught the defence square. Knight had words with the German left-back and the pair nearly came to blows before Henry stepped in.

Coleman put it down to frustration and was glad his players could show how much they cared. Passion was about the only thing Fulham did not lack. Once Gilberto Silva and Diaby had gained a grip of the midfield Henry and Ljungberg did much as they pleased when they pleased.

Ljungberg helped to set up goals of increasing simplicity for Emmanuel Adebayor, Henry again and Cesc Fabregas.

Fabregas and Jose Antonio Reyes, two of Arsenal's most influential players in the first game against Real, stayed on the bench until late on. For Wenger one of the most encouraging aspects of his team's performance will have been the growing confidence of new names like Emmanuel Eboue, Diaby and, not least, Adebayor, who comes across as Nwankwo Kanu with overdrive.