Afternoon Legion. Hope you are all enjoying your Sunday. The day after a win is always that bit sweeter, the roast dinner that bit tastier.

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Regular readers who have been with us since day one will notice that the headline doesn't just relate to the win yesterday and our season so far, but you don't need eagle eyes to see we have messed about with the website a little. Some colours here, some fonts there. After a month of hard blogging, we thought we'd change things up a little, keep the site fresh. It's something we'll be doing on the regular from now on. 

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In relation to the headline and what we are seeing on the pitch, there's something different about this season so far. You get the sense the team has the bit between its teeth and is going to give everything to win something major this year or die trying. You can feel it too, right?

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Our run of games against our last three opponents a year ago yielded one point out of 9. A loss away to Newcastle, a draw away to Fulham, and a home defeat to West Ham. This year, 9 points from 9. This is how you win league titles. Flat track bully the so-called lesser sides, then hold your own against the big boys.

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Fulham tried to surprise us tactically by ditching their usual 5-3-2 for a 4-4-2 in possession and a 4-4-1-1 out of it. The first twenty minutes, it caught us off guard a little, but once we adjusted and realised that this Fulham isn't very good, we took over the game and honestly never felt like we were in any danger, and it was only a matter of time before we punished them.

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That's two games in a row we haven't had a single shot on target against us. Not one. Last night's was all the more impressive coming after an interlull when the side hasn't trained much at all as a unit. When we said in the preview we'd take a scrappy 1-0 win, we didn't think they would take us literally, but when you have a defence as good as ours, you can feel confident in these single-goal games that we are going to come out the other side with the win. That's a great feeling to have,

 

We heard the doom merchants after the game talking about our goal coming from a set piece again. Yeah and? It's said like some kind of insult when, in fact, what we are actually saying when we score from a set piece is "we'll score on you with highly choreographed, movement you've spent all week practising how not to concede from." You hear it all the time, "You're never winning the league, only scoring from set pieces. That isn't sustainable."

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Really? You want to know what else isn't sustainable? A team chock full of attacking talent not scoring from open play.  We are going to give someone an absolute hammering sooner rather than later. Once the dam bursts, there's no plugging that hole. We are going to go on one of those heaters, like we did for a spell last season, where we dismantle teams on the weekly and it's going to make for glorious viewing.

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One of the reasons we are so bullish on it is that we think Gyokeres is soon going to get on a tear and fill the net regularly. We see it. Not everybody else might, and that's okay. He's in that moment right now where he's trying too hard. All strikers go through it. He needs a close-range tap-in rebound from a keeper save or one of his wind-up power shots to go through a goalie's hands rather than hit them. It's coming, though. We can feel it.

 

One criticism we do have of his all-around play is his battle strength. Viktor is built like a heavyweight boxer. He looks like one of those world's strongest man competitors. He cannot allow himself to get mugged off by someone like Sessegon, who barely makes middleweight.

 

You are playing for The Arsenal, we don't get cheap free kicks for being manhandled or fouled. Sometimes you get the feeling the refs look at him and think "He lifts fridges for a work-out, he needs to be stronger" as his marker is busy saying "Nothing to see here" whilst throttling him to the ground around the neck. He needs to drop the Sterling-esque incredulity and start being the wrecking ball he's capable of.

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Which brings us nicely to VAR. Yes, again. Anthony Taylor gives the penalty, but our friend, who wasn't allowed anywhere near our games for a full two years, Stuart Atwell, recommended he  ̶r̶e̶v̶e̶r̶s̶e̶ review it. Which he did and overturned it.

 

At this stage, it's not even so much about whether it was a penalty or not (we think it was, he whacks Saka on the thigh before getting to the ball). What we'd like to know is, since the start of the season, how many given penalty decisions have been reviewed pitchside and overturned? We've had two in three matches. What's the total in all the other games combined? We would be amazed if there were many at all.

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Before we get into the man of the match and our honorable mentions, we'd like to chat about a couple of things, Fulham-related. "WE DONT GIVE A SHIT," we hear you shout? That's fine. Skip a couple of paragraphs down and go about your business. 

 

For those who are interested, we'll start with ex-hale-ender ESR. We're looking at the Fulham line-up pre-match, and they had Josh King (not the ex-Bournemouth one), an 18-year-old central midfielder up top, playing just off Jimenez (who was fit enough to play the full match, shocker). We're thinking how far Smith-Rowe has fallen that he can't crack the line-up before that kid? We said in our preview that the talent is there, so it must be something else. Whatever that 'else' is, he needs to course-correct his career quickly (try saying that fast after a few pints of Guinness) or all that untapped talent and potential will go to waste, which would be a real shame.

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The other thing is their manager, Marco Silva. We mentioned in the preview that he has a year left on his contract, and it was looking like his time might be up. Well, it may be up sooner rather than later. Every Gooner's fave Aussie Big Ange lasted a total of eight matches spanning 39 days at N Forest before getting kangaroo bounced back to the unemployment line.

 

We aren't blaming Edu for the hire. There's only one voice at that club, and it's Greek, not Brazilian. How does Marco Silva tie into the mess at the City Ground? Well, he and the owner have previous, with him having a stint managing Olympiakos. With no sign of a contract extension from either side at Fulham, it makes a lot of sense. Certainly one to keep an eye on.

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We are also going to take a moment to remember the aggro Forest fan who called us melts on Twitter for saying we hoped his team didn't go down. It looks like we weren't chatting bollocks after all because THEY HAVEN'T WON A GAME SINCE, and guess where they are at this moment in time? Yes, the relegation zone.

 

Back to us, and who were our top performers on the night? Honorable mentions go to Calafiori, who was probably our best player first half and was unlucky not to score a worldie, but was offside. Gabriel was as solid as ever at the back. Jimenez, who is good in the air, outmuscled him early and won a header, and you could tell it irked the Brazilian no end as he made sure it didn't happen again.

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Next up on the honorable mentions is our Spanish Six Zubimendi. Physically, not the quickest, not the strongest, but my god, he makes up for it in the brains department. He is one of those guys who is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers. Plus, he hasn't stopped smiling since he joined us. An elite footballer and a likeable character as well. We hit the jackpot with him.

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Our MOTM, however, goes to .....