Bukayo Saka finished Saturday night wearing Arsenal’s captain armband as his team opened up a three-point cushion at the Premier League summit. But he still wasn’t content.
The demanding England international was left to lament the number of corner kicks which he wasted during a tense 1–0 victory over Fulham at Craven Cottage.
The Gunners were once again largely ineffective in open play—despite Saka’s best efforts to free himself from Ryan Sessesgnon—before Leandro Trossard kneed a scrappy opener over the line on the cusp of the hour mark. That goal predictably came from a corner kick which the club’s vice-captain delivered, yet he held himself to higher standards.
“We have some big guys in the box. At the start of the game, I took some rubbish corners,” Saka told Sky Sports postmatch.
“I was quite disappointed. I kept going, and I think this [the one that Trossard scored] is the fourth one. I put it in, and it was a nice delivery. Gabriel got the touch, and Leo got the goal, so I’m very happy with that.”
Fulham manager Marco was particularly unhappy with the nature of the goal. The hosts were much the better side for large swathes of the London derby on the banks of the River Thames, unsettling Arsenal with concussive raids forward while also frustrating their hosts in open play. Fulham had managed to limit the visitors from dead-ball scenarios—though, as Saka would point out, his delivery didn’t help—until Gabriel broke free of the cage Silva had created around him.
“We wanted to block that strong run and power run from Gabriel most of the time. I really believe that path can’t be open,” the Portuguese boss moaned. “Most of the game we did control well the inside path for him to run in the direction of the goal.
“That moment Sessegnon opened out a bit more, he went in the way and you see how high that he [Gabriel] can jump. In that moment, the flick at the front post killed us a little bit on the far post with the touch from Trossard.”
Mikel Arteta Not Concerned By Arsenal Trend
Another game and another set-piece goal for Arsenal. More than 60% of the Gunners’ goals this season have come from dead-ball scenarios, a swollen ratio which no other team in the Premier League can (or would want to) match.
Arteta was dutifully unfazed by this apparent dependency. As he outlined, Arsenal score from so many set pieces because they create so many of these scenarios thanks to their dominance in open play. “We generate so many we have to understand [how to exploit them],” Arteta explained.
“Against these low blocks when they don’t really want to drop and commit that many players there, we have another opportunity to put the players that we want in the position that we want with the role that we want, and we need to exploit that. We could have exploited it today in different ways, at the end it was a set piece so more than welcome.”
READ THE LATEST ARSENAL NEWS, TRANSFER RUMOURS AND MORE
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Why Bukayo Saka Came Away From Arsenal’s Win Over Fulham ‘Disappointed’.