Again and again Arsenal's weaknesses since last season have not been corrected. Anticipating set pieces, especially corner kicks, the last two matches are proof that Arsenal have not learned from their mistakes. Fulham vs Arsenal is indeed of better quality than Arsenal, but in this match Fulham played neatly and effectively. Arsenal should have imitated Liverpool when they beat Fulham a few weeks ago, by using all long distance kicks. Personally, I think Fulham and Crystal Palace are the teams with the strongest defenders.
Arsenal's defeat is certainly very detrimental. Apart from being behind Liverpool by five points, they are also behind Man City and Aston Villa. This was a bad start to the year for Arsenal because they were immediately in fourth place in the standings.
Their weakness has not been corrected and they have more competitors in this season. In the last season, Arsenal only competed directly with Manchester City but in this season, they have three competitors, Manchester City of course, Liverpool and surprisingly Aston Villa.
Arsenal have more challenge from competitors in this season and with their weakness, they are not competitive enough to win the title. Arsenal are at similar level of Aston Villa while Manchester City and Liverpool look to be at higher level a little bit.
Defensive strategy is the key basis used by the home team to win Arsenal, it was not an easy run but with the appropriate timing of crucial counter attacks, Fulham was not lucky because they got more significant chances of scoring. Mikel Arteta looks confused because his team have lost their chance of topping the EPL table and now they have recorded 2 defeats in a row, definitely not the result they've been craving for and this is entirely a major setback for the club. Marco Silva and his team defeated Arsenal at the Craven Cottage stadium. A big win for Fulham and a tremendous lost for Gunners. This defeat have made them move to 4th position on the table.
Arsenal can not win if they only create opportunities but their attacking players fail to convert opportunities to goals. Some times they only need one goal to win the match but if they can not score it, they lose 2 points with a draw. Sometimes they need one goal to equalize the match and without it, they lose one point.
Arteta is right that Arsenal attacking players must sharpen his finishing skills to help the club gaining more winnings. Playing with bad finishing skills and weak confidence in front of opponent goalkeeper will be weakness and very harmful for Arsenal chance to win Premier League.
In the match against Fullham, they can not blame that they lost it because Fullham used a very defensive tactics. It's just their attacking players wasted so many opportunities.