The Arsenal past will face the Arsenal of present when the two teams meet at the Premier League on Sunday while among the Fulham team are some former Arsenal stars who will take part in the Sunday London derby.
The home sides both came to the midweek round of matches and had two-goal victories, with Arteta’s team defeating Manchester United 2-0 before the Cottagers secured a 3-1 victory over Brighton & Hove Albion to strengthen their pursuit of Europa League football.
Scoring three goals against Nottingham Forest and five goals against West Ham United and Sporting Lisbon was not preparation for the kind of an attacking performance that Arsenal wanted against the disciplined defense of Man United in their Emirates match.
Nonetheless, Ruben Amorim was the latest in a long line of managers to be outsmarted by Arsenal’s notorious potency from set-pieces, as Jurrien Timber and William Saliba snatched the Gunners a victory their overall performance deserved throughCorner Conversion.
As the highly appreciated set-piece coach, Nicolas Jover savours the commendation again, the head trainer Mikel Arteta aims for driving his revived team to achieve the fifth consecutive victory in the existing domestic competitions for the revived squad that reduced the deficit to the leaders, Liverpool to only seven points after the Merseyside club’s failure to secure a victory at St. James’ Park, Newcastle United.
Clearly, the scoreline that was achieved by Chelsea by putting five past Southampton means that Arsenal has now occupied the bronze medal position on the English Premier League log.
Besting West Ham in their last such excursion enabled the Gunners to register five or more goals away from home for the fifth time in a single campaign in 2024, a feat not achieved by any English top-tier team in six separate away fixtures in a year, although their respite at the Craven Cottage was far from memorable.
A few months after being limited to only one point at home by Marco Silva's team, which has since been bolstered by a few former Emirates players, Arsenal lost 2-1 to Fulham on New Year's Eve 2023, a result that ultimately proved fatal in their quest for title glory.
When Brighton visited the city on Thursday night, Alex Iwobi, one of those Hale End alumni, shone brightly under the lights. He scored twice either side of an own goal from Matt O'Riley to make sure Carlos Baleba's effort and acrobatic celebration would be in vain.
The Cottagers, who currently sit in sixth place in the standings, just one point behind the Seagulls and four behind Manchester City in the final Champions League spot, have greatly improved their chances of qualifying for the continental tournament by undermining Brighton's bid for Europa League or Conference League football.
Since drawing blankly at Manchester United on the first day of the season, Fulham has scored in each of its previous 15 games across all competitions, terrorizing backlines for pleasure. However, they are yet to record their first home clean sheet of the year.
Silva's team, like Arsenal, has demonstrated its mettle in London derbies, winning all eight of their previous Premier League encounters with their capital rivals. They haven't had a winning run in these derby games since 2001, but that nine-game run came to a fitting conclusion at Craven Cottage with a 3-1 loss to Arsenal.
Three days before a Champions League match against Monaco, a few alterations are still possible, so Ben White and Takehiro Tomiyasu, who have been knee problems for a long time, might be the only visitors missing Sunday's derby.
