Wednesday, December 21, 2011

WEDNESDAY ...


Rather surprisingly, away day's at Craven Cottage have been Manchester United's nemesis in recent seasons and given the Red's ongoing defensive woes, which we have touched upon many times, I can see that sequence continuing this evening.

United have taken just one point from their last three visits, with Fulham scoring in eight of the last ten visits, at least two in the last three, including a 3-0 win here in the pre Christmas fixture two seasons ago, to be precise, two years and two days ago. There is still not too much protection for the United backline and the hosts will doubtless take the game to the visitors, as they normally do when the "bigger" clubs come calling, with far too many of the other "minnows" adopting a much too cautious approach. They fought back from 2-0 down to claim a share of the spoils with Manchester City, a result all the more noteworthy, as they were struggling a little at that time, since when, they have beaten Liverpool and taken a point at the Emirates. The only blip verses top six teams, came against Tottenham, with Happy Harry's inform team winning 3-1 here in West London. That result was very unfair to Fulham, they created 26 attempts on goal, including a massive 20 on target, I lost count of the number of times Brad Friedel saved his team that day and the third goal and decisive goal came in the 96th minute, a reverse of the scoreline would have been a truer reflection of the game. So, we can see that the home side tend to show their best against the best and of course, United fall into that category. Both teams arrive on the back of easy weekend wins
and in good form, but I still think that United have to get very busy in the transfer window, if they are to claim yet another EPL title. They have only kept consecutive clean sheets in that mini sequence following the horror show 6-1 home loss to City and the only "strong" team they met then was Everton, who were very wasteful. In my opinion they have over achieved in the EPL this season, probably having at least five more points than they should have and which their performances have merited. Bobby Zamora is set to return to the home line up and I have to take Fulham and the draw. Fulham +0.5 ball 2.20 + asian line.

Good Luck.

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