As the game's live this evening on TV I shall be taking this one in on the big screen at the local village pub. There's a small knot of Fulhamites round here - certainly no Everton fans will be in evidence - so we can cheer, shout and curse the performance without inhibition. None of us need reminding how dismal our record is at Goodison Park - we have never won a league game there. Surely today we are capable of taking the three points if we are prepared to be bold and really go for it? Feel free to post your reactions here over the weekend. But as we've been disappointed so regularly on the road over recent years, I'm going for a 1-1 draw, while fervently hoping I'm wrong.
There's a lot of mind games in football. Maybe this is just another bread and butter league fixture, but why alert the opposition from Thursday Bobby will start from the bench, being in the gaffer's eyes not yet ready for a full 90 minutes? That's a valid reason. But as we play an entirely different system when Bobby leads the line as opposed to our nippy lightweight attack without him, why give the Everton defence clear sight of how we're going to be set up for the game?
Might it not have been better to throw doubt into our opponents minds by being foxy and suggesting Fulham were going to approach this away game differently? Being already stretched with injuries, it could well have impacted on Moyes selection headache and influenced his own tactics. We are, let's face it a pretty predictable outfit, especially away from home. Mavericks that can pull out the unexpected all remain on the bench - assuming that includes Gera, Kakuta and Eidur alongside Zamora, while Sidwell remains out of action. Now Steve might conjur up a netbuster from nothing, Dickson the man least likely to.
Everton's season is all but over. They won't make the top six but have too much about them to go down. They're pretty solid at home and will have most of the big names back for the run in. If our pitiful away jinx continues, and with Liverpool and Arsenal at home to close out, we remain too close to the relegation scrap for comfort. Win today and by tonight we could be sitting pretty on 38 points in 8th place - and with that I would sleep easy all week.
Regarding other Fulham stuff in the past few days. So our year on year losses continue to mount. The Europa Cup run plus Smalling's big fee to Man Ure make not a dent in the deficit. No accountancy credentials needed to know that the massive wage bill can ever be covered by gate revenue, TV rights or commercial activity. This cloud cuckoo land approach does not perturb our chairman, who continues to express his commitment to the club. If he's not worried by the mountain of debt, why should we be? How appropriate then we are about to unveil a statue to Michael Jackson at the ground...surreal or what?
The statue will be unveiled for the upcoming Blackpool game, and there's bound to be added media attention for that. I am planning something special for that weekend focusing on Fulham's fantastic overseas support - our Scandinavian branches are coming over en masse. If you're reading this from outside the UK and planning to be in London for this game...stay in touch with the blog!
And finally, star in the making...watch out for LDV's progress with Bournemouth to the end of the season. This boy's so good they should name a trophy after him (geddit?).
Three points this afternoon please for London's most popular club.
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