Brentford's Ivan Toney
Toffees struggle to savour final games before heading to new stadium
Bournemouth merited their triumph over Mikel Arteta’s underwhelming Gunners who had one eye very much on their crucial Champions League clash v PSG
Brentford 3-2 Fulham
by Layth Yousif
at the Brentford Community Stadium
A LITTLE over 36 years ago, this derby, then a Division Three clash, played out on a frozen Sunday morning at grand old Griffin Park. Such were the freezing conditions, kick-off was improbably moved back an hour in a bid to let the pitch thaw out somewhat. The conditions relented and an entertaining 3-3 draw ensued.
The season for both sides was the archetypal essence of mid table mediocrity - Brentford finished 12th and Fulham finished ninth - albeit with the six goals shared in that long-lost derby in February 1988, featuring a lively young tyro called Paul Merson, on loan to the Bees of West London from the Gunners of North London.
If you were to insist that three and a half decades on this clash would be the biggest West London derby clash of the top-flight season, with both sides above currently misfiring two-time Champions League winners Chelsea, there surely wouldn't have been many takers on the atmospheric but crumbling New Road terraces, that would have been scarcely able to imagine such a scenario, let along manifest it.
In the shadow of Heathrow and glow of Thorpe Park, a band of Arsenal loyalists have built something lasting — a grassroots club with old-school values, writes LAYTH YOUSIF
A point apiece at the Emirates with both Arsenal and Palace looking distracted by forthcoming semi-finals
