Happy Friday folks – we all good?

The Arsenal Women are, as they got back to winning ways with a 2-0 away win in Benfica, so hopefully that is a sign of a glorious Arsenal weekend ahead of a trip to Fulham on Saturday evening for the men’s team. And as is my wont ahead of these games, I had a little tiptoe over to some Fulham fan sites to see how they are feeling ahead of this one, as well as how the pundits are thinking this one stacks up.

Firstly, those pundits, who I don’t think any of us will be surprised to hear that they are pretty much suggesting this is an Arsenal win. Ignoring the fact that we haven’t beaten Fulham in our last two visits, this is clearly one in which most are suspecting we keep up our success so far this season in keeping clean sheets and Merse is predicting a 2-0. To be fair to him though, he does say that this is a game that we have to win if we are going to take the title and that just last season he saw games like this and West Ham last weekend in which we slipped up in. Sports Mole are also going with a 2-0 and I do like their predictions and the detail they go in to it on. Chris Sutton just gets a soundbite on the BBC and he’s also gone with a 2-0, although in a break from the rest of the pundit pack, Ol’ Jones Knows on Sky is going for a 1-0 away win to The Arsenal. He shows his workings though and talks about how we are so resolute defensively, but that one-goal, as opposed to a two-goal margin like the others have gone for makes sense to me given the fact we’ll probably face a low block tomorrow.

The managers’ haven’t been in front of the press today obviously at the time of me writing this, but given the noises around some of the injuries around Marcos Silva’s side, you can understand why the pundits are favouring us and why Jones is going for a narrowly contested contest. Last season Fulham got an early goal with their first chance and then they essentially retreated into a low block, for which we got one but were unable to secure a late winner from Martinelli. A repeat of Fulham scoring first and early tomorrow will most likely end up in a little Deja Vu I suspect.

The Fulham fans aren’t as hopeful though. Silva will confirm this later, but their walking yellow card midfield enforcer Sasa Lukic is out for a number of weeks apparently and that is causing a bit of a stir in the online Fulham forums. The first comment I read said “Personally I can’t put up an argument for us to win, let alone possibly a point” to give you a bit of insight. Another talks of a potential long night, then there’s talk of not playing well after international breaks, as well as one guy suggesting a 5-1 win is on the cards. I thought it was really unusual to come on a message board like this and see so much resignation; usually regardless of the result there are fans saying things like “I hate Arsenal more than any other club” (for some bizarre reason), or “we’ll smash those cockneys” or the like. But here there seems to be a bit of an acceptance and I wasn’t sure why. But th vibes appear to be based on the injuries and potential that their only fit striker Jimenez has a question mark over his fitness. You could see how that could be an issue and in a recent Fulham blog I read, the author spoke about how Traore may be a menace, but his lack of finishing ability really hampers them and so they are all crossing everything that Jimenez is available to play. Let’s not forget it was he who scored against us last season. But he wasn’t able to play against Bournemouth and so whilst I think he will be fit tomorrow, he might be a little rusty, which is what we have to hope. He hasn’t played a ton of Premier League football so far, racking up just 143 minutes in the Premier League across six games, which averages out as 24 minutes per game. Hence the hope of a little rustiness against a guy who has bagged goals against us before.

Regardless of his availability though, those Fulham fans in the main aren’t feeling this one too much. The game isn’t played in the ether, it’s on the green stuff, Fulham have more than enough as a Premier League side to cause us a three-in-a-row upset, but as I said when kicking off today’s blog and talking about what Merse thinks, these are the sort of games that you really do have to win if you’re going to claim to have a shot at the title.

Let’s hope that’s the case tomorrow.

I’ll be back in the morrow to give some more thoughts when we have the detail from both managers, but until then, enjoy your Friday and I shall speak to you all when a proper football match day is finally upon us.