Arsenal blew Fulham away with three first half goals at Craven Cottage as Mikel Arteta’s side recorded a fifth consecutive win in the league to restore their advantage at the top of the table to five points.
After the match, the boss faced the Sky Sports cameras. Here’s what he had to say…
On a good afternoon’s work…
I’m really happy with the performance, obviously winning 3-0 away from home, keeping the clean sheet, the chances [we created] and the goals we scored…a big compliment to the team because we deserved to win, we played really well.
On two goals inside 25 minutes setting the tone…
Yes and we had a goal disallowed which psychologically you have to overcome. But we kept trying, we kept playing, we found the right spaces against a really well-organised team. Overall, I’m really happy.
On his centre-halves scoring this week…
It’s great. I think the way we are distributing the goals is really important in the team. Today, Leo contributed three assists and he could have scored two at least. It’s good that everybody is willing and has the capacity to arrive in the final third and create or score goals.
On Arsenal’s second goal starting at the back…
Yeah, very good. Every time we put the ball in the net, it’s great. There are certain things that we practise that are difficult to see them come in games but today we had some big chances and scored some beautiful goals.
On being the first London team to win five away derbies without conceding a goal…
Great, but that’s not a title! It’s good because it means the team is doing really well and it’s obviously something really difficult to do but we need to continue.
On how he assesses this result in the context of the run-in…
Another step. Another step in the right direction because the team played really well, competed really well against a really tough opponent in a really difficult place and won in a convincing way. That’s reassuring.
11 more to go! COYG
We win 9 of those and it’s s ours!
Yes, if one of the nine is against City.
“Great but that’s not a title!”
The stock response to all of Tottenham’s achievements.
You could also remove “Great”..
I’m not sure about “achievements” either.
Totten who?!
What achievements?!
“What progress….?”
Paul Merson to Jeff Stelling, when asked that very question.
An incredible first half- we looked like scoring every time we went forward. Slightly less controlled second half but a brilliant result against a good Fulham side! Onwards and upwards. COYG!!
We should have told Xhaka Leno moved to Fulham. He passed a one on one right back to him in the box.
I hope the same people who mocked us last week for wildly celebrating a last gasp exhilerating winning goal against a bottom of the table side (who happened to play much better than their position) will have paid attention to just how matter of factly we’ve reacted today to demolishing one of the better sides in the Premier League.
Arteta ball- long may it continue.
He knows exactly what we need.
This is going to sound negative, but that is not how it is intended. Although Fulham are far higher in the table than anyone expected, they are not in fact a side that should have given us any trouble. All their wins and all their draws but one (very early) have been against bottom-half teams. That’s to their credit, and their manager’s credit–they have amassed enough points to challenge for Europe without having anywhere near the quality of the “top six.” In addition, they were missing one of their most important players. So why isn’t this negative, minimising what Arsenal… Read more »
I read a couple of places before the game saying Fulham had amassed enough points that they can afford to go for it. That plays into our hands. It’s the scrapping bottom feeders with their low blocks that will give us more trouble.
I’d argue we shouldn’t have taken our foot off the gas.
I was hoping we’d put another 3 past them in the second half