Hleb Breaks his Duck and Arsenal Player Ratings

In the end, Arsenal made a lucky escape. In the first half, Arsenal were lively after Lehmann had gifted Fulham the opening goal, and kept coming at Fulham in waves. The Fulham keeper kept rushing out and smothering the ball before Arsenal could pull the trigger. Then, when Arsenal did get shots on target, the keeper, and sometimes his defenders, made blocks, throwing their bodies at everything.

In the second half, Arsenal were a bit tired, and created fewer chances, but got two goals. Kolo Toure, a fantastic player, created the first. He saw that the Arsenal midfield and forwards didn't have quite enough drive to get an equalizer, so he pushed up from central defense, took the ball in midfield beat a couple players, eluded Bocanegra in the box, and Bocanegra took him down. Bocanegra took a calculated risk with the shoulder nudge, and some referees may not have given the penalty. In this case, the referee, Phil Dowd, knew what was going on. Van Persie put the penalty in the roof of the net.

After that, the law of averages finally worked in Arsenal's favor and Hleb got a late winner.

Referee Phil Dowd - Missed a penalty against Hleb (bad call). Denied a penalty claim when Cesc might have knicked the heel of a Fulham attacker (good call). Got the penalty call against Kolo right. Did a good job avoiding the headlines by warning players in place of yellow cards; this helped Fulham finish the game with 11 players (7).

Lehmann - Passed the ball to Fulham striker for opening goal in the first minute of the season. Looked understandably rattled for the rest of the game (3).

Sagna - Solid (8).

Kolo - Brilliant (and almost scored an own goal when he tried to chest it to Lehmann and it came off his own shin and went just wide) (8).

Gallas - Solid, not as much so as Sagna, but ok (7).

Clichy - Fun to watch (7).

Eboue - Quite good early, then faded alarmingly and was replaced by Walcott who was somewhere between the good Eboue and the bad Eboue, but closer to the good one (7).

Walcott (sub) (6).

Flamini - Not terribly convincing as the holding midfielder (6).

Cesc - He had a bit of an off game, by his own high standards, but then had the nice chip that led to Hleb's winner. An Arsenal favorite (7).

Rosicky - Looked likely to score. He favors having a go to overplaying. He's going to have a great season. He was replaced by Bendtner, about whom I'm skeptical (6).

Bendtner (sub) (6).

Hleb - Man of the Match (along with the Fulham Keeper). Hleb is quite skillful on the ball. He won a penalty early in the game that was not given. He sometimes lacks the final ball that would put the nail in the coffin - sometimes....he got a late winner on this occasion (8).

RVP - Always looked likely to score. I was worried that he would be too frustrated to take his penalty well, but I hadn't need be (7).

Song (sub) made an appearance in about the 96th minute. He's on track to get his ten appearances and collect his winner's medal.

Unused substitutes:
Almunia
Senderos

MIA:
Diaby
Denilson
Eduardo (not fit according to arsenal.com)
Hoyte (on the fringe)
Fabianski (on the fringe)

We knew that Adebayor (injury) and Gilberto (R&R) were unavailable.

Flamini was given a vote of confidence over Diaby and Denilson.

It was a riveting game.