From the vault: Five famous wins against Fulham

Just like last season, Fulham make the trip across London on Saturday looking to try and end our 100 per cent start to the campaign - and if last year's encounter is anything to go by, we’re sure to have another memorable afternoon of football in store.

That 2-1 win 12 months ago is one of a number of great games between the teams, many of which have seen us score plenty of goals and record some big scorelines against the Cottagers.

To jog your memory, we’ve dug into the archives to find five famous fixtures from our Premier League history:

February 23, 2002

Arsenal 4-1 Fulham

Arsene Wenger’s team continued their title tilt by extending their unbeaten run to 14 games with this convincing win against the Cottagers. A rare Lauren goal five minutes in was quickly cancelled out by Steve Marlet, but that just seemed to fire us up more.

Patrick Vieira slammed a shot past Edwin van der Sar on 15 minutes to put us back in front, before Thierry Henry raced away to put us 3-1 up at the break. He completed his brace just before the hour mark when Lauren’s header struck a post before cannoning in off the falling Frenchman, who nonchalantly celebrated on the turf after helping his team move into second place.

August 25, 2005

Arsenal 4-1 Fulham

This game looked like being one to forget when Lauren had a penalty saved by Tony Warner before Claus Jensen put the visitors in front on 22 minutes with a fine curler from the edge of the box. Then after Pascal Cygan headed in 10 minutes later, Brian McBride missed two big chances to restore Fulham’s advantage.

We capitalised on those missed chances though when Henry brilliantly pulled down a fine Jose Antonio Reyes pass and tucked the ball home, and then added a second by dinking over Warner. Cygan wrapped things by scoring again late on, with two of his three Gunners goals coming on this particular afternoon.

May 9, 2010

Arsenal 4-0 Fulham

We wrapped up the 2009/10 campaign with a convincing win to send our supporters into the summer satisfied, and ensure we stayed ahead of Tottenham Hotspur in the standings. Fulham rested a host of their big names with a Europa League final on the horizon, and we found ourselves 3-0 up at the break.

Andriy Arshavin gave us the lead after pouncing on some hesitancy from Mark Schwarzer, before Robin van Persie netted at the second attempt. Chris Baird then put the ball into his own net on 37 minutes to virtually end the contest, before Carlos Vela cheekily chipped home our fourth.

January 1, 2019

Arsenal 4-1 Fulham

We began 2019 with a bang by putting Fulham to the sword at Emirates Stadium. Granit Xhaka ghosted into the box undetected to poke home the opening goal, before Alexandre Lacazette completed an excellent team move on 55 minutes to seemingly put us on course for a straight-forward win.

However Aboubakar Kamara pulled one back to give the visitors hope, but 11 minutes from time Aaron Ramsey put us back in control of proceedings. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang then saw a deflected effort creep into the net to complete the rout for Unai Emery’s Gunners.

August 27, 2022

Arsenal 2-1 Fulham

Gabriel bounced back to be the hero of the hour as we came from behind to beat Fulham and make it four wins from four at the start of the season. After a goalless first half, our Brazilian defender was caught napping in his own box by Aleksandr Mitrovic who put the Cottagers ahead on 56 minutes.

But some neat feet by Martin Odegaard allowed him to get a shot away which was deflected past former Gunner Bernd Leno, who then parried a Gabriel Martinelli corner into a crowded area which fell perfectly for Gabriel to snatch all three points with four minutes remaining, on what was Mikel Arteta’s 100th Premier League game in charge.