All eyes were on Arsenal's Robin Van Persie coming into this match. It's perfectly understandable. Only Real Madrid's Ronaldo has scored more goals for club and country in the 2011 calendar year. However, it wasn't the prolific Arsenal captain that found the back of the net, but a center back, and he found the net for BOTH teams.
As is typical, Arsenal controlled much of the match. Fulham had never won at the Gunners, and it seemed like it would be a tough ask today as well. Andrey Arshavin got a look in the 11, after sitting out the Champion's League fixture midweek. He looked pretty good. Early on he took a pass from RVP and smacked it into the back of the net, but the flag was up and replay showed he was indeed offside.
Theo Walcott and Ramsey also had great chances for the Gunners. Ramsey in particular forced a great save out of Mark Schwarzer to keep the game level. Fulham had two solid chances in the first half, one from Bobby Zamora and the other from Mousa Dembele. However they couldn't beat Wojciech Szczesny and we went into the half time break at 0-0.
Business then picked up in the second half. Van Persie got his best look of the game early on, only to see his shot cleared off the Fulham goal by Chris Baird. Then in the 65th minute we had our first goal of the day. Thomas Vermaelen tried to play a bouncing ball in his own area, but ended up putting it past his own 'keeper to make it 0-1 to Fulham.
A few minutes later, Bobby Zamora knocked in another for Fulham. However, he was also flagged for offside, but just barely. It was a lot closer than Arshavin's called back effort.
Vermaelen redeemed himself and snatched a point for the Gunners in the 83rd minute. He got his head onto a Theo Walcott cross and directed it into the back of the net to make it 1-1. Arsenal put on a lot of pressure in the final 7 minutes, but Fulham held on to snatch a road point at the Emirates.
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