We didn’t have a great time of it against Fulham last season.
You can point to all sorts of moments and matches across the season that contributed to costing us the Premier League title but the five points the Cottagers took from us would be chief among them.
And while no side is going to go through an entire campaign without dropping points somewhere, the nature of the results against Fulham were especially frustrating.
They’re just not that good a side. Don’t get me wrong, they are tidy and technical on their day but they really shouldn’t have had as much joy against us as they did.
Particularly egregious was the 2-2 draw at the Emirates. Having worked so hard to get ourselves ahead against the 10-man visitors, we let it slip in the final few minutes from a corner, of all things.
It didn’t feel like a disaster at the time but, with so much in our favour on the day, dropping points as we did was hugely damaging.
Matters were certainly not helped when we let another lead slip in the return fixture at Craven Cottage a few months later. That defeat ultimately served as a springboard for the second half of our season but, by then, the Manchester City juggernaut was already up and running and there was simply not stopping it.
It’s clear, then, that we have some wrongs to set right. This is no blood fued, no long-standing rivalry of the north London type, but it is a blot on our copy book from last season that could well do with correction. Put simply, we owe them one.
That is likely to be easier said than done, though. Fulham are enjoying a good season by their standards and have a talented squad performing well under Marco Silva. Given their stature as a club, they continue to outperform and that’s a credit to have tidily run they are and the recruitment they have done.
That recruitment includes, of course, a host of former Arsenal stars, including Emile Smith Rowe, Reiss Nelson, Bernd Leno and Alex Iwobi – talented players all.
For one weekend, though, we have to put sentimentality to one side and put full focus into coming away with a lot more points than we managed last time out. With Liverpool’s match against Everton postponed, we suddenly find ourselves with the chance to close the gap at the top of the table still further. That’s an opportunity not to be missed.
The only real question marks from a selection point of view surround the players who have already missed a few fixtures through injury, Riccardo Califiori and Gabriel Magalhaes.
Vague as ever, there’s no way of knowing from the manager whether either player is in contention for the weekend but my guess is he will gamble on leaving then out for at least one more match, hopeful the likes of Oleksandr Zinchenko and Jakub Kiwior will have enough to get us through.
If Arteta decides to go down that road, I don’t think we can have any complaints. The points are vital, of course, but we also have a ridiculous number of fixtures coming our way over the next six weeks. We need to rest and rotate wherever we can.
But there remains a job to do too. Finding the balance won’t be easy.
Hopefully, however, the players will have motivation enough from last season to fire them up for Sunday. While we dropped points elsewhere during the season, the handful we lost to Fulham stick out above most others.
Though all teams have them, we don’t want Fulham to become a new bogey side for us. There’s only one way to stop that from developing. It’s time to banish the bogeymen.
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