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He’s had a week off and Preview Percy is raring to go as we welcome him back for this week’s preview of our visit to Fulham. We would like to make it clear that our welcome is in no way connected with our failure to find another preview writer during the transfer window...

Next up we hop upriver to Craven Cottage where we will be hosted by Fulham. Kick-off on Saturday is at the holy hour of 3pm. Fenchurch Street trains are diverted in and out of Liverpool Street, there’s no Piccadilly Line and, whilst the District Line to Putney Bridge is open, the western bits from Ealing Broadway and Richmond are shut if you are coming from that direction. Check before you leave.




So Fulham then. So far this season they have the full set of a win, a draw and a defeat under their belt. Their season opener at Old Trafford saw them slightly unfortunate not to come away with a point following an 87th minute winner. They then ran out 2-1 winners at home to Leicester, a result that was more comfortable than the scoreline suggests. Then last week they just about did enough to earn a point up at Ipswich. This leaves them with 4 points from the three played so far, a point and a place above our good selves.

There were five new signings for Daisy to research this week. Enough to keep her busy without muttering under her breath. Too loudly. Their first arrival was a return home for Ryan Sessegnon. The left-sided full-back/wing back/whatever made over 100 league appearances for the Cottagers between 2016-2019. Then, tragically he signed for Tottenham in a deal worth £25m. He barely got a look in there.

38 league appearances in five years tells its own story – though the better part of 2020-21 was spent out in Germany on loan at Hoffenheim. Spurs released the England Under 21 international at the end of last season so Fulham picked him up on a free.

Emile Smith-Rowe was the next arrival. He too had to overcome hardship to make it to the Premier League, in Smith-Rowe’s case he had the misfortune to have been born in Croydon. Despite that he made it into Arsenal’s first team.

He was part of the England team that won the 2023 Under 21 Euros against Spain but found it difficult to nail down a first XI place following a niggling groin injury that required surgery in 2022-23. No such problems at Fulham who paid £27m to bring him down the Piccadilly line, changing at Earl’s Court for the District.

They spent £7m to bring in Spanish central defender Jorge Cuenca from Villareal. However, 20% of that fee ended up at Barcelona, with the Catalans having inserted a sell-on clause when he headed off to Villareal. He’s yet to make a league appearance this season, his one start coming in the 2-0 away win at Birmingham in the League Cup.

Defensive midfielder options were enhanced with the £20m signing of Sander Berge from Burnley. Fulham will be hoping for a jinx to be broken by the Norwegian who, having joined Burnley from Sheffield United, has been relegated with his last two clubs and will want to avoid a hat-trick.

The final arrival was another central defender in the form of Joachim Andersen, who commanded a £30m fee to escape Crystal Palace. It’s not the Dane’s first spell at Fulham – as a Lyon player he spent 2020-21 on loan at the cottage.




Had enough of them? Me too so let’s move on to the Wild and Wacky World of Association Football – and it’s a "Profit & Sustainability" special this week.

Having just about regained my composure after watching Scotland self-destruct faster than a Bond villain’s secret lair this week, a quick scan of the news brought forth the news that the Independent Panel’s hearing into the 115 charges faced by Manchester City is about to start. So soon, guys?

In other news, the powers that be have approved the financial sleight of hand utilised by Chelsea last year to avoid profit and sustainability problems. You may recall that they sold a couple of hotels to themselves which made everything ok.

Of course, this year they won’t have those two hotels to sell and, with them having assembled a squad the size of a small nation’s army, they will be hoping to pick up that Community Chest card that says they have won second prize in a beauty contest before they land on "Go To Jail".

The final bit of news from the murkier end of football finances came from Leicester who, you may recall, were facing charges resulting from an alleged overspend when they were last in the Premier League. The case descended into farce as it was discovered that whoever had drafted the legislation hadn’t taken into account the possibility that a team might be in a different league when charged.

The Foxes successfully argued that, as they were not members of the Premier League at the time they were charged the rules didn’t apply. They won their case and the Authorities are now looking at employing someone other than that bloke in the pub who studied law for a few weeks before being kicked out of university for non-attendance to do the rewrite.

And so to us. Well Man City turned out to be not as disappointing as it might otherwise have been. The first five minutes saw us unlucky not to take the lead before they moved into their usual mode whereby if you lose possession it takes you half an hour to get it back.

When they are like that the last thing you need to do is gift them a goal so it was disappointing when we did. We had a spot of luck with the equaliser. Good as the move had been when Bowen put the ball into the box there were no team-mates about to find so an own goal was the only way that particular move was going to benefit us.




Having said that their second was absolutely superb. It was the sort of move and finish that I was brought up by my late Dad applauding whether it be us or an opponent. Disappointingly I was in a minority in my bit of the ground. Sign of the times I guess – I reckon most would probably have booed Dinamo Tbilisi off that time.

The second half was excellent though. Where we had sat back before we spent long spells taking the game to them. There was some good football there and whilst as soon as Kudus hit the post a 1-3 final score looked inevitable (even if we did have to give them that one as well), there was enough to encourage optimism for future weeks to come.

The international contingent returned with not much to worry about on the injury front. Bowen managed to stay fit largely as a result of watching both games from the bench, unlike Harry Kane who watched the Ireland match from the pitch. Areola, who missed the second half of the City game with a knock, seems likely to return to take his place between the sticks.

The one doubt will be Fullkrug who, having scored in Germany’s 5-0 win over Hungary was forced to sit out their 2-2 draw against the Dutch with a sore Achilles. Lopetegui remained more optimistic over the player’s availability than German boss Nagelsmann who was quoted as saying the player would need a few weeks before playing.

Cresswell will be another absentee, his hamstring which gave way in the warm-up v Bournemouth, is likely to be a problem for a couple of months.

We will, of course say hello to our final arrival of the window, Senor Carlos Soler who has arrived on a season’s loan from Paris Saint Germain. He will strengthen the options in midfield – though his biography suggests that in his younger days he was more of a striker. We of course wish him well.

And so, dear friends, to the prediction. This was one of those weeks where you wished that the international break hadn’t interrupted things. Had we played them last week there would have been enough of a feelgood factor for me to have gone for a win. It shouldn’t be beyond us even allowing for the break. However, I’m minded to err on the side of caution, particularly since they appear to have no injury issues to worry about

So with that in mind the £2 that I was going to send the Premier League to double their legal budget will instead be wagered on the Winstone Turf Accountancy Digital App on a 2-2 draw.

Enjoy the game!




When Last we met at the Cottage: Lost 5-0 (Premier League – December 2023)


This came just three days after an energy-sapping win up at Tottenham and the lack of squad depth in an European season started to kick-in. Alvarez fell sick before the game which didn’t help matters. We started brightly but once Jiminez had opened the scoring the fatigue showed itself and there was no coming back as Tosin, Willian, Wilson and Vinicius completed the scoring.

Referee: Tim Robinson

Last seen at home to Bournemouth last season taking an age to review a clear penalty that Tommy from the Who album of the same name would have picked up unaided.

Danger Man: Emile Smith-Rowe

Seems to have hit the ground running since his move across town.

Percy & Daisy’s Tenuous Fulham Fact Of The Week

Ever wonder why Fulham changed their badge from a tasteful Coat of Arms design to something that resembles the vaguely swastika-like thing that sci-fi film-makers knock-up to signify a
quasi-fascistic regime in some dystopian parallel universe? (no – but I suspect that you are going to tell us anyway – Ed)

Well when they first made their way up into the Premier League, the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham realised that it was they who owned the copyright to the coat of arms. Pointing this out to the club the burghers of said borough went away with their calculators and started to work out how much they could charge per replica shirt, no doubt mentally adding up what sort of increase in councillors’ allowances a deal would mean.

Fulham decided they’d rather keep the shirt sale proceeds and someone came up with the current, rather sinister design still in use today. They did stop short of allowing "Diddy" David Hamilton playing Wagner before matches though.

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