Arsenal 2-1 Fulham – 13/08/07 – (Premier League) 13 August, 2007

First thing first, the underground are wankers. Not only is because of them we had a stupid kick off time of 12:00 on a Sunday, but they also made me 20 minutes late for the fucking game. I went to my local station to find it was bloody closed with some stupid bus replacement service, I wasn’t going to wait for that so I had to go to another station miles away where I knew my ticket would cost double. When I finally got there I realised I’d forgotten my fucking railcard so it was even more over priced.

Then I had to wait half an hour for a train into central London. The station was full of United and Chelsea fans making their ways to their home grounds. I swear about 20 people saw me in my Arsenal shirt and said something along the lines of: “Aren’t you playing at 12? You’re gonna miss the game.” I didn’t take too kindly to these comments. Now there are a number of things that really annoy me in life…I hate waiting for trains, I can’t stand missing a single second of an Arsenal match and I hate Manchester United and Chelsea. I wasn’t in a great mood.

When I finally got to Highbury and Islington I started running to the ground and as I passed a pub they had Sky Sports News on and it came up: Arsenal 0-1 Fulham. I just stopped and stood there with my mouth open I couldn’t believe it. The guy was saying something about a terrible Lehmann fuck-up. So by the time I finally reached the ground my temper was at it’s highest setting and I was fucking exhausted, not being the fittest of people running in the ground in the sun.

So yeah I finally got there and we playing the team I pretty much expected with Hleb behind RVP but with Flamini in for Gilberto. We seemed to be on top of the game but Fulham were frustrating us really well. We had a number of decent attacks and some good shots but the reserve Fulham ‘keeper Warner was making some excellent saves. I found out after the game that Auntie Niemi got injured in the pre-match warm up but his replacement was having a blinder.

Half-time came and Fulham were very lucky to still be leading really. I wasn’t too worried at this stage as we had 45 minutes to go…and we only score this end. I saw Fulham’s goal Lehmann’s stupid mistake in the half time highlights. I couldn’t believe it, what a twat. Why did he pass it to the other side? Jesus.

The second half continued much the same and it was incredibly frustrating to watch. Could we lose to Fulham again? Well it was getting more and more likely and you wondered if it just wasn’t going to be our day.

Wenger threw on some more attacking players in the hope to find a goal; just after the hour Walcott came off for Eboue, and Bender replaced Rosicky 10 minutes later. Bendtner looked sharp and was winning all the headers as usual. Theo wasn’t as impressive as I thought he might’ve been after seeing him in pre-season but he was still causing Fulham problems. Toure and Gallas were getting forward too now, we needed a goal. Toure was really getting between the Fulham defence and for a while he looked our best player going forward.

In the end it was him that earnt us the goal. Kolo picked up the ball in Fulham’s half and drove into the box past a few defenders. I thought he might go all the way but his was brought down in the area and it was a fair penalty. Robin Van Persie placed the ball down and the whole stadium were biting their fingernails as he ran up to take it. It was a fantastic penalty screaming into he roof of the net, unstoppable for Warner. The goal lifted the fans and for the final 7 minutes of normal time the crowd were at full voice urging on a winning goal.

And it came…in the 90th minute…from Alex Hleb. Perfect. It was a really well taken goal by Hleb actually. He took down a long ball and sent the goalie the wrong way placing it in the corner. A great goal by Hleb and I hope there’s more to come. Ashburton Grove went mad apart from the Fulham corner who started filtering out.

It was a very frustrating game to watch. If you hadn’t of know you would’ve thought it was still last season. Nothing’s changed. In the end it was a great opening weekend for us: We got all three points, Tottenham lost to Sunderland in the last minute and 10-man Reading held Man United to a 0-0 draw in a game which Rooney picked up another foot injury which’ll see him out for two months. Lovely. Birmingham were unlucky not to cause an upset too at Stamford Bridge, but Chelsea were 3-2 winners.

Thanks for reading. Next game is Sparta away on Wednesday; build up to that to come.