Arsenal’s most recent trip to Craven Cottage will be remembered for a number of reasons.
Of course, the important one being that the comfortable 3-0 win over Fulham allowed the Gunners to restore their five-point lead at the top of the Premier League table after it had been cut by title rivals Manchester City who had beaten Crystal Palace 1-0 on Saturday.
Furthermore, it was the game that marked Gabriel Jesus' return to action following a three-month spell on the sidelines with a knee injury, whilst Martin Odegaard scored to join Arsenal teammates Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli on double figures for goals in the league.
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But perhaps the most bizarre moment from the London derby involved Fabio Vieira as the Gunners looked for goal number four in the closing stages when Granit Xhaka swept the ball out to the right-hand side only for the attack to break down despite the Portuguese playmaker’s immaculate first touch.
Knocking the ball beyond Tosin Adarabioyo and into space, had the next couple of touches been spot on then Vieira will have likely found himself in a 1v1 situation with former teammate Bernd Leno and the chance to net his second Premier League goal of the season.
However, following that first touch, the very next action saw Vieira on the floor. How he ended up in such a position was a bit of a mystery at first and what made this incident so remarkable is that Arsenal were awarded a free-kick even though there was no contact.
In fact, Rob Holding made reference to it on social media as he wrote: "Never seen a player trip themselves up and get a free-kick (laughing emoji) @fabiovieira" on his Instagram Stories, as per Reddit.
Meanwhile, thanks to the latest Arsenal 'Bench Cam' video which gives supporters an insight as to how animated manager Mikel Arteta is on the touchline - at around the 8.36-minute mark Jorginho - another unused substitute at Craven Cottage - seemed to be poking fun at Vieira who was pointing at the floor as part of his defence.
Ultimately, the resulting free-kick led to nothing as there would have been a lot of controversy had the Gunners scored given Vieira, in Holding's own words, tripped himself up. Although, it should be noted that the 23-year-old didn't actually intimate that he had been fouled.
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