Fulham 1-1 Arsenal: Mikel Arteta's team is held in the title fight despite a goal by William Saliba from another Gunners corner.

Despite scoring from yet another corner, Arsenal was forced to settle for a 1-1 draw at Fulham, missing the opportunity to cut the deficit to four points with Premier League leaders Liverpool.

Just after halftime, Arsenal delivered a set-piece blow for the second time in four days when William Saliba deflected Kai Havertz's header from Declan Rice's corner to tie the score at one. This was the Gunners' 23rd goal from a corner since the beginning of the previous campaign.

With the exception of Raul Jimenez's goal after 11 minutes, when the Mexican forward got free from Jakub Kiwior's marking and blasted it past David Raya, the Gunners were frustrated throughout the match at Craven Cottage, controlling the ball and offering Fulham nothing.

Saliba's goal escaped a protracted VAR offside examination, but the technology robbed Arsenal just before stoppage time when Gabriel Martinelli disallowed Bukayo Saka's late winner for an earlier offside.

"[Liverpool head coach] Arne Slot would have had his heart in his mouth watching those final few minutes and the biggest VAR decision of the season so far," Jamie Redknapp stated during the final whistle.

"It was absolutely incredible but Martinelli just had to keep himself offside."
 
"What a Liverpool weekend. Arsenal and Man City are both losing points, and they've improved their position even further."

At Craven Cottage, Arsenal had numerous opportunities to score multiple goals, and their best chances came from—you guessed it—corners. Thomas Partey missed a chance from another Rice corner, and Saliba should have scored from Arsenal's first of the game but missed with a glance of his header.

Saka headed home Martinelli's cross, giving the Gunners the impression that they had won, but VAR saw that the former had gone too early in the build-up.

"He is offside, but in footballing terms, that's criminal from Martinelli," adds Merson. "You are unable to be offside. The line is what you're looking at.

"He's not someone who tries to nick a yard and play right on the edge because he has pace and is electrifying. The manager even knows, so I'd be shocked if he wasn't the target of one in the dressing room.

He knows you can't do that, as you could see by the look on his face afterwards. One thing to keep in mind when looking along that line is to avoid being offside. That's how easy it is."

Due to the draw and Storm Darragh's decision to postpone yesterday's Merseyside derby, Arsenal has reduced Liverpool's lead to six points, but Mikel Arteta's team will view this as a lost chance.

'Gutted' as he strives for flawless performance, Arteta

Mikel Arteta, manager of Arsenal:

"I'm devastated that we lost because I believe we were worthy of winning from start to finish. Almost everything we needed to do to win it was done.

"However, this is the opposition's strength; they have one chance to score. Then the league's margins additionally. We had a great, dominant performance against a very good team, and we might have been sitting here with three points for millimetres.

"You can't weep over it. This league's beauty lies in that as well. Their ability to play today despite these conditions and against strong opposition is another aspect of this team's beauty. That truly makes me happy.

"Opposition has that quality. We are incapable of pitying ourselves. We must advocate for ourselves. We performed admirably against a very strong opponent. These kinds of games are not typically seen here.

"In order to give the opposition no chance to win the game, we must now keep becoming better and consider how we can do it better. That's the goal.

Silva: We didn't have the best day with the ball. Marco Silva, the Fulham manager:

"The game was as tough as we anticipated; it was very challenging for us. We've had a very difficult week since we have three games in eight days. games that are hard.

"We knew it would be hard this afternoon; Arsenal made it hard for us. The players showed great perseverance and kept to the plan. We were in a terrific moment because of our early goal, which was excellent.

"I really believe that we didn't play our best game on the ball after Arsenal grabbed control of the match.

"Arsenal took the ball from ourselves, they control the ball, had set pieces but they only had one really good chance from Declan Rice, they didn't have many more because we blocked them well."