Fulham vs. Tottenham

Fulham hosts Tottenham on Saturday, but remember we are only four hours different right now from London because of last weekend's time change, so kickoff is at 1:30 on the East Coast rather than the typical 12:30 for the late Saturday match. It will be available on USA Network.

I may be suffering from a case of irrational optimism, but I like Fulham's chances this against Tottenham. Fulham have been pretty good at home, they have a full squad to pick from, and Tottenham has only one away win against a team currently above Fulham (just don't remind me it happened last weekend against Aston Villa).

When Fulham visited Tottenham back in October, Bassey was given his first start, but he had to play on the right side with Ream on the left. Bassey made a number of poor passes that Tottenham managed to turn into goals twice. That match was also in the middle of Fulham's worst scoring drought where they were shut out in four out of six matches. Fulham should be in a stronger position defensively this time and they should score this time, especially with van de Ven out.

I think Fulham gets a sniff of a win in this one, but problem ends up with a draw.

 

Can't watch live. The wife volunteered me to do work at her parents house. Hooray for marriage.

 

Been in an all day retreat, so just now seeing the score.
WOW!
Muni’s on fire!
And your defense is terrified!

 

Wow. Possibly the best performance of the season. What a Jekyll and Hyde team we are; makes things interesting.

 

@stlouisbrad Happy wife happy life

My wife runs the drama club at the school she teaches at and I was the Go-Fer at her Sat rehearsal today, so didn’t see a second of it. Can’t wait to watch the replay.

 

So almost none of us got to watch this live! I'll also be looking forward to the replay tomorrow. I was following along via the BBC text feed while doing home repairs in the basement. I had to remind myself not to thrust my fists skyward in celebration because my basement pipes are only 6 1/2 feet off the floor and that would make for some sore knuckles (maybe I need a different house with higher ceilings since I thrust my fist into a spinning ceiling fan last season).

I appreciated Matt Jarvis on the BBC feed giving Fulham credit for the way they played rather than just saying "Tottenham are having a bad day." He was pointing out that Fulham was responsible for delivering that bad day.

I noticed Broja didn't even make the bench. Poor guy. No one expected Muniz to go on one of the best (or THE best?) Premier League scoring runs of any Fulham striker. The best Mitrovic could ever manage in the Premier League was 7 goals in 9 matches. Muniz is now 7 for 7! (Mitrovic did score 8 in 4 games in the Championship)

Muniz scoring isn't much of a surprise anymore, so the biggest shock was Fulham becoming the first team in over a year to get a shutout against Tottenham! Just amazing.

 

Your point about shutting out Spuds is spot on Micah. They’ve almost always been considered a more offensive minded club, at least since I’ve been a footy fan. 100%

 

And DD, your incisive notation of our Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde act this season. It’s maddening to see what they are truly capable of for a couple of games, then plummet straight through the toilet, often against a club we should beat.
Highly irritating and frustrating.

 

Count me as another who missed the match. I was helping my mom clear out a storage unit that she’s mostly ignored for about a decade.

Even though their pass accuracy was just 76%, the extended highlights show some great one touch passing by Fulham. I’m really pleased with the way that the back four are jelling.

That’s three London derby wins so far this season!

 

After getting to watch the full match I'm really glad Robinson got MotM. It would have been easy to go with Muniz, but the savvy Fulham fan base overwhelmingly gave Robinson the award. He was so important for Fulham going forward, but he also killed so many Tottenham attacks just as they got started. He had an uncanny sense of when to step forward and cut out a pass. He was a big reason they had trouble getting anything going. Castagne also did a great job doing much the same over on the right side.

I was a bit surprised that there were a few times in this match, especially in the first half, when Bassey still made a poor pass to turn over posession in the Fulham half. Unlike last time against Tottenham, the Fulham midfield quickly recovered and eliminated any danger.

A much better weekend than this same time last year when I had my worst experience as a Fulham fan!

 

No match for Fulham this weekend, so take 20 minutes to enjoy this breakdown of Silva's game plan against Tottenham: