Wednesday, 18 February 2009

All the footprints you've ever left and fear expecting ahead (Fulham)

5 points clear by the end of the night then? Facing a Fulham side who haven't won away all season, who've only scored 3 goals away from home and whose top scorer (Andy Johnson) is an injury doubt, you've got to assume that it's 3 points in the bag. With Van der Sar 2 games away from a European League record for clean sheets, Fulham seem to be the ideal team to be playing in one of them.
The team should be a lot easier to predict than for the game against Derby, although with the game against Inter coming up there's a chance some players could be rested with a view to that.
Sky Sports go for this team as their probable: Van der Sar, Rafael, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Ronaldo, Carrick, Scholes, Giggs, Berbatov, Tevez. I think the only thing I can see being different there is Park for Giggs. Giggs having played ninety minutes against Derby he may well be rested, especially as he seems to be Sir Alex's big game player and with the Inter game upcoming.
To further point out the likelihood of our picking up three points, here's a couple of stats about Fulham from the BBC match preview:

Won only 19 of 145 away games in Premier League history, and statistically the third weakest team on their top-flight travels this term.

Failed to score in seven of their last eight away league games; Paul Konchesky's effort in the 3-1 loss to West Ham on 18 January is their only goal in those eight matches.

So I see nothing but a comfortable victory, prediction: Man Utd 3 Fulham 0

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