| Premiership - Saturday February 01, 2003 |
| Arsenal |
(1) 2-1 (1) |
Fulham |
Fulham suffered a cruel afternoon indeed going behind to Arsenal in the first half, obliged to reshuffle the team, they still got up from the canvas to equalise and in a second half in which they resolutely frustrated the Arsenal attack, they went down to defeat only in stoppage time.
Arsène Wenger, the Arsenal manager, put the best face he could on his team’s somewhat laborious display. “We are delighted to get the points,” he said. “We had everything that was needed to take the points because we kept going and put them under pressure.
| |
|
|
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
| |
Fulham Manager Jean Tigana said the players and I are very disappointed. We deserved a draw. It’s difficult to lose points in the last minute, because we worked very hard today. We have to keep fighting |
|
|
“In the first half, we created many chances and did not get the goals we could, but this team has the mental strength to do what it takes to win.”
It also, luckily for the Gunners, had Francis Jeffers.
Wenger had every reason to be pleased with the young striker, so expensively transferred from Everton and so often absent both at Goodison Park and Highbury through what seemed an endless series of injuries. It was only when Jeffers came on in the 69th minute that an Arsenal attack which had foundered on the rocks of the Fulham defence at last began penetrating it dangerously and effectively.
He was involved crucially on a number of occasions. Indeed he had been on only a couple of minutes when, receiving from Patrick Vieira, he spun insidiously to thump a shot which Maik Taylor, the Fulham keeper, did admirably well to turn over the top.
A few minutes later, it was Jeffers who found the Brazilian midfielder Gilberto Silva, and his shot hit the foot of the left post. And, most important of all, it was Jeffers in stoppage time who gave Robert Pires an easy chance to score his second goal and win the game for Arsenal. “I must say that Jeffers contributed a lot when he came on because he gives you something different,” said Wenger. “He makes the runs behind the defenders and makes more space on the flanks because he stretches the defenders. He’s an unselfish fox.”
Fulham manager Jean Tigana inevitably announced: “The players and I are very disappointed. We deserved a draw. It’s difficult to lose points in the last minute, because we worked very hard today. We have to keep fighting. When Arsenal changed three players it changed the game a little bit. That is the difference. The problem was in the second half — the last 20 minutes were very difficult for us.”
Fulham were obliged to reshuffle after only 10 minutes of the game had gone. Then their right-sided midfielder Sylvain Legwinski was replaced, not as you might have expected with another right-flanker in the Dane Bjarne Goldbaek, but with the Welsh international centre-back, Andy Melville. It meant that Martin Djetou, who had been playing centre-back alongside Alain Goma, was pushed up into midfield.
The switch worked surprisingly well, not least in defence where Fulham belied their limp display in midweek, when they lost 4-1 at Manchester City.
When, after 36 minutes, Thierry Henry glided past Melville as though he wasn’t there, to be thwarted only by a gallant block from Taylor, with whom Tigana was properly pleased, it seemed that Fulham’s central defence might crumble. In the event it didn’t, though very near the end Melville went into the referee’s book for hacking Henry’s legs.
Defensively resilient, but so seldom dangerous in the second half, Fulham might even have taken an unexpected lead after 14 minutes. Luis Boa Morte, once an Arsenal player himself, got away on the left and served the Argentine striker Facundo Sava, who was just about to shoot when Ashley Cole frustrated him with a spectacular saving tackle.
Three minutes later, Arsenal went ahead. Vieira found the ever subtle and inventive Dennis Bergkamp, who in turn launched Henry on the left. The Frenchman turned past Steve Finnan with almost delirious ease and crossed with deadly accuracy to the unmarked Pires, who headed into the net.
Would the floodgates open? No. Indeed on the half-hour, Fulham had the temerity to equalise. When Finnan played the ball up into the box, Steve Marlet flicked it to his fellow Frenchman Steed Malbranque, and he banged his volley wide of David Seaman. It was his fifth goal of the week.
So to a second half which did not really ignite until the arrival of Jeffers. Wenger pronounced himself happy with the week as a whole, having dropped two points at Liverpool in the last minute, but made sure of all three in the last minute against Fulham. Had a couple more points been dropped yesterday, he admitted: “This would have been a hugely disappointing week. But the four points from the week were acceptable.”
Arsenal Seaman, Cole, Keown, Campbell, Lauren (Toure 84), Pires, Vieira, Silva (van Bronckhorst 79), Wiltord (Jeffers 70), Bergkamp, Henry.
Subs Not Used: Taylor, Cygan.
Booked: Lauren, Henry, Toure.
Goals:
Pires 17, 90.
Fulham Taylor, Harley, Goma, Djetou, Finnan, Boa Morte, Davis, Malbranque, Legwinski (Melville 10), Marlet, Sava (Saha 69).
Subs Not Used:
Goldbaek, Herrera, Wome.
Booked: Melville.
Goals: Malbranque 29.
Att: 38,050
Ref: E Wolstenholme (Lancashire).
Source S. Times by Brian Glanville