Arsenal’s title challenge suffered a blow after the Gunners suffered a second successive Premier League defeat at Fulham on Sunday.
Mikel Arteta’s side looked on course to bounce back from their midweek setback against West Ham, when Bukayo Saka fired the visitors in front at Craven Cottage. Arsenal were unable to build on that early advantage, however, and Fulham levelled before half-time through Raul Jimenez.
Fulham improved after the break and went ahead through Bobby Decordova-Reid, who scrambled in a second for the hosts just before the hour.
Defeat for Arsenal was their third in five Premier League games and leaves the Gunners fourth in the table, two points behind leaders Liverpool having played a game more.
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Mikel Arteta was critical of his team’s performance at full-time and called their showing at Fulham the club’s worst performance of the campaign.
“Really tough day. A sad day. Three days ago [2-0 defeat by West Ham] we played a game we lost that we completely meant to win it, today was our worst game of the season,” Arteta said to BBC Sport.
“The pace, the purpose we have in attack, defensively we were second best, we could not dominate and had issues because of that.
“We didn’t do enough with that [possession] – not enough purpose speed or threat. We were sloppy with the ball. It wasn’t good enough. We didn’t deserve to win. When you have opportunities to go top of league on 31 December and now end up with really bad feeling that is football. The lines are really thin.
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“If we play like we played in the other 19 games we will be up there [in the league at the end of the season]. If we play like today we will be nowhere near. Today was a really difficult day to swallow.”
