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49 min Robinson’s cross is sliced over his own bar by Saliba. Fulham have started the second half pretty well.
48 min Jimeneze has a pop from 25 yards. It’s a good effort that fades a few yards wide of the goal with Raya at full stretch.
47 min I missed a half-time substitution for Arsenal: Noni Madueke has replaced Bukayo Saka, presumably to rest the main man ahead of Atletico Madrid on Tuesday.
46 min Arsenal get the second half under way.
‘Press release’ is the subject of Charles Antaki’s email.
(Reads from piece of paper): On behalf of a significant fraction of Arsenal fans, I am prepared to consider revising my opinion of Victor Gyökeres, subject to further developments.
Half-time reading
“Rob,” writes Sean Orlowicz, “you said fighting for a title was supposed to be miserable. “I’m having a blast!!!
“(I’ve been miserable since January.)”
Arf. That first half reminds me of the title-winning sides under Wenger, who had – for a Manchester United fan – a sickening habit of being 3-0 up after 20 minutes in April and May.
Half time: Arsenal 3-0 Fulham
Bukayo Saka’s return to the starting XI inspired a joyous first-half performance from Arsenal, who now have the chance to massage their goal difference in the second half. Saka made the first for Viktor Gyokeres, who returned the favour and then scored his second with a fine header.
Here’s the Premier League table as things stand.
Trossard led an Arsenal break with a surge through the inside-left channel. He beat his man in the area and stood up an inviting cross towards the far post. It was slightly behind Gyokeres, who showed his finishing expertise by straining his neck muscles to loop a header over Leno. He took that beautifully.
GOAL! Arsenal 3-0 Fulham (Gyokeres 45+4)
Another terrific goal clinches victory for Arsenal, already.
45+2 min I think this is the first time Saka has scored and created a goal all season, since 2024 in fact. If so, he’s picked a very good time to signal a return to form. The Emirates is a totally different place to the Newcastle game a week ago.
45 min Three minutes of added time. Arsenal are hunting a third before the break, which would then allow them to concentrate on goal difference in the second half. It’s an awkward thing to manage but they should be mindful of it as it may well decide the title.
44 min A delicious cross from Saliba just evades the stretching Gabriel at the far post. This is Arsenal’s most relaxed attacking performance in ages, probably since they walloped Spurs 4-1 in February.
43 min The return of Bukayo Saka has made Arsenal smile again.
In his first start for six weeks, a rejuventated Bukayo Saka has made one and scored one. Eze swept a nice pass down the right for the ever-willing Gyokeres, who held the ball up until Saka made a sudden dart infield. Gyokeres played him in with a nice reverse pass, and Saka rifled a low drive past Leno at the near post. That’s a lovely goal.
GOAL! Arsenal 2-0 Fulham (Saka 40)
Bukayo Saka’s back, baby!
40 min Trossard chops away from a defender on the edge of the area and sweeps a daisycutter that is comfortably saved by Leno.
38 min Sounds odd to say, but Fulham might be the happier team if it’s still 1-0 at half-time. Arsenal have been much the better team and will be keen to put the game to bed before we reach the jitterzone.
37 min Wilson’s corner is cleared by Saliba, but then White loses his balance and is robbed by Lukic. His defensive mates get him out of trouble by clearing Lukic’s cross.
36 min Fulham are having a decent little spell. Calafiori gives Raya problem with a short backpass in a crowded area; Raya’s clearance hits Gabriel and ricochets behind for a Fulham corner.
35 min “I’ve never understood the criticism of Gyokeres, I have to say,” have to says Joshua Keeling. “I think he’s a very good player. Not in the absolute top rank of strikers (Haaland et al), but very few are. He’s a good finisher and gives Arsenal something different.”
I can understand it – he is a relatively limited player – but like everything it has been way over the top.
32 min Chukwueze and then Robinson have long-range shots blocked.
No goal! Arsenal 1-0 Fulham
It was a fine header by Calafiori from Trossard’s chipped cross, but it looked comfortably offside to the naked eye. VAR confirms as much.
Seconds earlier, Eze had a shot blocked in the six-yard box by Bassey after a slick move involving Rice and Saka. Arsenal are getting a lot of joy down their right, where Saka looks as vibrant as he has all season.
Hang on, he’s offside!
GOAL! Arsenal 2-0 Fulham (Calafiori 29)
Riccardo Calafiori makes it two, and now Arsenal will be thinking about goal difference as well as three points.
27 min: Good save by Leno!
Leno comes for an angled cross, drops it under pressure from Gabriel but recovers superbly to repel Gyokeres’s snapshot. The ball rebounds to Saka, who shoots through a crowd and wide of the far post. That’s a good chance.
On the previous incident in the 26th minute, Saka’s corner might have been headed towards goal by Gabriel. If so, Leno made a really good save.
26 min Saka swings a typically dangerous corner into the six-yard box. Leno can’t hold it and is relieved to see the ball fall to a Fulham player.
23 min Lukic is booked for a foul on Eze. Fulham are second best at the moment.
21 min Raya makes a sliding tackle on Raul Jimenez inside the Fulham half. Ultimately it was fine, but it was a surprise to see him quite so high up the pitch. Fulham were hoping to break from an Arsenal free-kick that ultimately led to Eze having a shot blocked.
20 min Arsenal have controlled the game since going ahead, both with and without the ball. Fulham need to stay in the contest at 1-0, like Newcastle did a week ago, and wait for the nerves to kick in.
19 min “At the risk of being reductive, but the downturn in Arsenal’s form largely coincided with Bukayo Saka being injured, and generally when the best player isn’t there, a team is worse,” writes Kári Tulinius. “This is why I’m, probably foolishly, more optimistic than most other Arsenal fans of my acquaintance, because our Starboy is back.”
I don’t completely agree with that – he played the Carabao Cup final, where the blip started, and he hasn’t had a great season – but I certainly think the injury break could be a blessing in disguise for Arsenal. The way he made the goal was very 2022-25 Saka.
16 min Gyokeres’s goal was his 20th of the season in all competitions, a pretty good effort for a player who has spent much of the last nine months being criticised.
14 min Trossard shoots wide from 25 yards with his left foot. Arsnel have started well, with plenty of energy and purpose.
The goal was made superbly by Bukayo Saka, who sat Raul Jimenez down on the right wing and guided a low cross into the six-yard net. It was the kind of ball a goal poacher dreams about, and Gyokeres got across his defender to score from four yards.
GOAL! Arsenal 1-0 Fulham (Gyokeres 9)
Viktor Gyokeres scores another vital goal for Arsenal!
8 min Lewis-Skelly skips past Reed and is fouled. He’s made a lively start in midfield.
7 min Patient play from Arsenal, probing one side and then the other. Eventually the move breaks down due to an offside, possibly against Calafiori.
6 min Both teams have started brightly in possession. Fulham have certainly come to play, and why on earth not.
4 min Chukwueze beats White through sleight of hip and hits a low cross that is booted away at the near post by Rice.
2 min Lewis-Skelly wins a header just outside the Fulham area and finds Trossard on the left side of the area. He drives a low left-foot shot across goal and wide. Not a bad effort, a bit of a range-finder.
1 min Fulham get the match under way. There’s an excellent atmosphere at the Emirates; what the home supporters would give for an early goal or three.
Marco Silva’s pre-match thoughts
I want us to express ourselves in the best way possible and to match Arsenal in every aspect of the game.
There is tension around [the Emirates] but it is a normal tension – it’s part of the game at this stage of the season.
[On the absence of Sander Berge] We’ve had a virus at our training ground. But as always it is not going to be an excuse; other players have to stand up.
“My thanks to Richard Hirst, but if we’re talking races to the grave, I’m probably a way ahead of him,” writes Charles Antaki. “So should the Arsenal men’s team fail at this Premier League hurdle, the next may be beyond my span. Today, the universe has a chance to right the wrongs of the women’s unsatisfactory performance at Lyon; but given that the universe seems to show absolutely no interest in righting wrongs of any description, and there are a few around at the moment, I’m not particularly hopeful. But, as ever, we shall see.”
Mikel Arteta’s pre-match thoughts
Some of the changes are forced. There are other reasons as well – we need a lot of energy, freshness and quality as well.
[On Myles Lewis-Skelly playing in midfield] He’s been very patient, extremely understanding about the situation and he deserves another chance. Every time he’s played, he’s done really well.
Whatever happens at the Emirates, 2 May 2026 will go down as a bad day for Arsenal Football Club. That’s because Arsenal Women, the reigning European champions, were dethroned by Lyon in a dramatic Champions League semi-final.
“Hi Rob,” writes Richard Hirst. “I sort of understand why your preamble is devoted to Arsenal (Charles Antaki, we feel your pain), but there are two teams with something to play for today. I’ve never seen Fulham win anything in my 62 years of supporting them, largely because we are the biggest team in England never to have won anything.
“I was at Wembley in 1975 and in Hamburg in 2010, a gap of 35 years. If we qualify for Europe this season and get to the final in 2027 that will be a gap of 17 years, or roughly half. So I reckon that with luck and good health I’ve got that final plus one in 2035 (half the gap again) to see Fulham win something. To that end, we need to win today; sorry Charles.”
This lack of respect for the 2002 Intertoto Cup sickens me.
Premier League results
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Brentford 3-0 West Ham
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Newcastle 3-1 Brighton
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Wolves 1-1 Sunderland
We’re all painfully aware what Arsenal are playing for, but Fulham also have big ambitions for the remainder of the season.
A win at the Emirates would lift them to seventh and increases their chances of qualifying for Europe for the first time since 2011-12.
There’s plenty going on in the early Premier League games. You can follow the action with John Brewin.
Jacob Steinberg
Mikel Arteta has dismissed suggestions that Premier League sides are incapable of matching the levels hit by their European rivals, saying that freshness was key to Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain producing arguably the game of the season in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final.
With the Arsenal manager stressing player availability will make the difference during a defining moment in the club’s history, he argued that English football’s competitiveness cannot be ignored when it comes to accusations that the quality of football has dropped.
Arsenal have fought on four fronts during a draining campaign and Arteta, whose side have a number of injury problems before they hope to boost their title chances by beating Fulham on Saturday, pointed out that the domestic dominance of PSG and Bayern ensured they were in peak condition during their thriller in Paris on Tuesday.
“When I look at that game, Bayern v PSG, it’s probably the best game I ever witnessed in the quality of two teams and especially the individual quality the players delivered, I have never seen something like this,” Arteta said. “But when I look at the amount of minutes and the freshness of those players, then I’m not surprised.”
Team news
Mikel Arteta makes five changes to the Arsenal side that started in Madrid on Wednesday. Riccardo Calafiori, Myles Lewis-Skelly (who is playing in midfield), Eberechi Eze, Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard come in for Piero Hincapie, Martin Zubimendi, Martin Odegaard, Noni Madueke and Gabriel Martinelli. Odegaard isn’t in the matchday squad.
Harrison Reed and Antonee Robinson replace the unavailable pair of Sander Berge and Ryan Sessegnon in the Fulham side.
Arsenal (4-3-3) Raya; White, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori; Eze, Rice, Lewis-Skelly; Saka, Gyokeres, Trossard.
Subs: Arrizabalaga, Mosquera, Hincapie, Jesus, Martinelli, Norgaard, Madueke, Zubimendi, Dowman.
Fulham (4-2-3-1) Leno; Castagne, Andersen, Bassey, Robinson; Lukic, Reed; Wilson, Smith Rowe, Chukwueze; Raul Jimenez.
Subs: Lecomte, Tete, Diop, Cuenca, Cairney, King, Bobb, Kusi-Asare, Muniz.
Referee Jarred Gillett.
Preamble
Happiness is an illusion glimpsed in the aftermath of victory. Most of the time, watching our team play football is mostly a miserable, desperate, hard-faced experience – one that is entirely worth it for the moments of euphoria that little else can provide.
Nick Hornby nailed it in Fever Pitch when he remembered his first visit to Highbury.
What impressed me most was just how much most of the men around me hated, really hated, being there. As far as I could tell, nobody seemed to enjoy, in the way that I understood the word, anything that happened during the entire afternoon. Within minutes of the kick-off there was real anger (‘You’re a DISGRACE, Gould. He’s a DISGRACE!’ A hundred quid a week? A HUNDRED QUID A WEEK! They should give that to me for watching you.’); as the game went on, the anger turned into outrage, and then seemed to curdle into sullen, silent discontent… Entertainment as pain was an idea entirely new to me, and it seemed to be something I’d been waiting for. It might not be too fanciful to suggest that it was an idea which shaped my life.
This could be the greatest season in Arsenal’s history, the one in which they win the Premier League and Champions League, yet the last few months have had strong root-canal vibes. All things being equal, there will be a fair bit of misery and despair at the Emirates tonight. When you’re trying to win your first league title in 22 years, it’s the way it has to be.
Kick off 5.30pm
