Here’s your five talking points ahead of today’s match against the Cottagers…

How good are Fulham this season?
Rather like Wolves, there were high hopes for Fulham with regard to their chances of not being immediately relegated back to the Championship. This, because, like the Molineux club, they have an owner prepared to invest in the team. They won promotion last May by beating Aston Villa in the play-off, thus denying John Terry a return to glory. Rather than spend another 12 months scrapping to get out of the division, the former Chelsea captain decided to hang up his boots instead. Anyway, that’s a side point. This season, Fulham have stalled early on. Five points from seven matches is a poor return, given the quality of their players. At home they have only beaten Burnley, with a draw against Watford and defeat to Crystal Palace. They currently lie one place above the relegation spots.

Surely the turnaround is only a matter of time
Amongst the Fulham squad are a number of high profile players that should, with time, ensure their top flight survival. There were a lot of stories linking Ivory Coast midfielder Jean Michel Seri with a move from Nice to Arsenal, so it was something of a surprise that he ended up at Craven Cottage. What this demonstrates is the potential spending power of all clubs in the Premier League, certainly in terms of wages. Andre Schurrle spent two seasons at Chelsea, either side of the summer of 2014 when he was a member of Germany’s World Cup winning squad. He’s fallen out of favour a bit with Jurgen Low since, so we wait to see whether or not Chelsea were right to let him go. So far, it doesn’t look like an error of judgement along the lines of Romelu Lukaku and Kevin De Bruyne. Up front Mitrovic is an old fashioned style centre forward, and assuming Sokratis returns, that will be a match-up to look out for. The Serbian striker was sent off in August 2015 playing for Newcastle against Arsenal, for stamping on Francis Coquelin.

How times change… more quickly than it seemed they used to
Out of curiosity, I looked up the Arsenal eleven that started at St James’ Park that day. This is three and a half seasons ago. Cech, Bellerin, Monreal, Koscielny and Ramsey are the players still at the club. Of the seven players on the bench, only Calum Chambers is still an Arsenal player, although this season he is on loan to Fulham. This of course, means he won’t be playing today, although he’s been in and out of the starting eleven, and was not in the eighteen for the visit to Everton, Fulham’s last league outing. So six from eighteen. To me it’s a demonstration that players simply don’t remain at a club so long anymore. Sometimes this is due to agents making a decent cut from transfers, and engineering them, sometimes it is because punts on players have failed, and the selling club just want to get them off the wage bill and try with somebody else. And of course there is the occasional retirement. I’ll divide the players on duty for Arsenal in the game which Mitrovic was sent off into these three categories…
Moved to make an agent (and selling club) money: Sanchez, Oxlade-Chamberlain
Get them off the wage bill: Gabriel, Coquelin, Walcott, Gibbs, Giroud, Ospina, Debuchy, Joel Campbell
Retired (or allowed to depart at end of contract with no new deal offered): Cazorla, Arteta

The Fatigue Factor
Of the eleven that started against Watford last weekend, only Aubameyang, Ramsey and Cech did not travel to Azerbaijan. The latter is injured. This means that nine of today’s starting eleven will have made the five and a half hour flight each way. It’s a real test of how Emery has been handling his players, in terms of their preparation for a heavy schedule. Granted, only Monreal and Holding started both matches, but still, most of them would not have got to bed until after 5am on Friday morning. If Emery is to maximise the use of his squad, he may decide to rest Monreal and Holding today, preferring Kolasinac and Mustafi. However, if he wants to win this game, I’d venture he would be taking a risk by not selecting two of his in-form players. It will tell us a lot about the manager’s thinking if Holding does start ahead of Mustafi, and there is certainly no case for dropping the English defender. All round though, it will be interesting to see the energy levels of the players, as the Thursday night Europa League match – Sunday Premier League fixture is one that will become a regular facet of Arsenal’s season. It will hardly be a revelation to the head coach though, after all those successful European campaigns with Sevilla.

The winning run
It has to end sometime, and given the exertions in midweek, while Fulham could focus on training, it would be a triumph for Arsenal to win this match. It would certainly make a big statement about the resilience of the players under the new regime. Winning is a wonderful habit, and you cannot sniff at eight wins in a row in all competitions. Because of the circumstances, this is arguably the Gunners’ toughest fixture since the visit to Chelsea. Fulham will be like a wounded animal after a bad defeat away to Everton last weekend. It’s actually very difficult to predict how this game will go. Early kick-offs became problematic in the latters stages of the Wenger era. One thing that will be a determining factor today is the away team defending. It has to be tighter. Arsenal cannot continue to get away with presenting the opposition so many clear cut chances.

Conclusion
This is probably the toughest one to call out of Arsenal’s matches this season. In the games I’ve previewed (I haven’t always had the time to do a couple of the midweek cup ones), so far I’ve got the result, if not the scoreline, correct each time. I hope that run is going to end, because I am going for a draw today – 1-1. Another Arsenal win would be real cause for celebration and increased faith in what Emery is doing with his squad. But honestly folks, today might be hard work, and if the visitors are to take maximum points, they may have to tough it out. The international break will give some the chance to recover, although for others the treadmill will just continue…

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