Arsenal 4 Fulham 1: Gunners on song in New Year's Day London derby win

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Giuseppe Muro1 January 2019

Arsenal fans booed Unai Emery’s decision to substitute Alexandre Lacazette in a show of the frustration inside Emirate Stadium despite this 4-1 win against Fulham.

Emery was jeered when he replaced Lacazette with Aaron Ramsey when Fulham were threatening a late fightback at 2-1 after Arsenal earlier looked to have had the game wrapped up.

But Emery’s decision proved to be the right one as Ramsey made sure of victory for Arsenal by scoring a third goal.

But for a brief period in the second half the mood inside Emirates Stadium felt similar to the end of the Arsenal Wenger era with the home fans unhappy with their team.

Granit Xhaka and Lacazette had earlier put Arsenal 2-0 up and cruising before Aboubakar Kamara came off the bench to pull a goal back for Fulham.

Arsenal were looking vulnerable before Ramsey put the game out of sight and a deflected shot from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang made it 4-1.

The result moves Arsenal to within two points of fourth-placed Chelsea. Fulham stay 19th, one point from safety.

There was a minute's silence before the game in memory of former Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood, who died last month at the age of 82.

Arsenal almost went ahead inside 90 seconds when Aubameyang fired over before Ryan Sessegnon wasted two glorious chance to put Fulham in front early on.

The Arsenal defence was sliced open after nine minutes when Cairney released Sessegnon but the 18-year-old curled his left-foot effort wide of the far post.

Sessegnon then looked certain to convert Andre Schurrle's cross but he took a wild swing from six yards and completely missed the ball with only Bernd Leno to beat.

Arsenal should have been behind but Fulham were made to pay for those missed opportunities when Xhaka put the Gunners ahead on 25 minutes.

Slack Fulham defending allowed Xhaka to ghost into the penalty area and stab home a cross from Alex Iwobi.

Arsenal were still looking shaky at the back but they started to dominate possession as the half wore on and Xhaka, Aubameyang and Lacazette all went close to doubling their lead.

Arsenal did make it two 10 minutes into the second half when good play down the left led to Sead Kolasinac crossing for Lacazette to turn home.

It should have been game over but Arsenal let Fulham back into the game.

Substitute Kamara converted a cross from Sessegnon and Arsenal started to look jittery.

Emery’s decision to substitute Lacazette was booed but his replacement Ramsey put the game to bed and Aubameyang added a fourth late on.

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