West Ham United v Fulham: match preview

Like most of us Preview Percy saw some positives in Friday’s Cup exit. He also has a theory or two on why referees have suddenly started seeing things that aren’t there. And there’s some stuff about Fulham as well if you look hard enough...

Next we return to League action where we will play host to Fulham. Kick-off on Tuesday is at 7:30 pm, which will mean getting home at a reasonable hour, trains permitting.




So Fulham then. If such a thing still exists they would probably be the first name down on your coupon for the treble chance. Since 1 December they have played eight, winning two and, somewhat incredibly, drawing six.

The wins came at home to Brighton (3-1) and away at Chelsea (2-1). The draws, largely a combination of 2-2s and 1-1s, came at home to Arsenal, Southampton (the exception at 0-0), Bournemouth and Ipswich, with points picked up on the road at Tottenham and Liverpool.

Overall they have won seven, drawn nine and lost four over the season leaving them in ninth place with 30 points from the 20 played thus far.

In the Cups they went out of the League Cup in the third round, drawing 1-1 at Preston then going out 16-15 on penalties, their kit man missing the first spot-kick as each side ran out of players. Probably. They had an easier time of it in this weekend’s third round of the Cup, easing past Watford 4-1 at Craven Cottage.

Daisy is enjoying her extended break – the slow start to the transfer window means that, pretty much like everyone else they have yet to dip a meaningful toe in the water, meaning that Daisy has no new signings to research or report back to me on. It’s almost like she planned it this way.

Their top scorer this season is Mexican Raul Jiminez. He has 10 across all competitions of which eight have come in the league.

One player who seems to impress me every time I see him – but who doesn’t seem to get too much in the way of plaudits – is Alex Iwobi. Every time I see him he seems to be pulling the strings in midfield. Maybe he’s unheralded because I always seem to catch him on a good day and he’s rubbish the rest of the time, but he often seems to be at the centre of things.

On the injury front Reiss Nelson, Kenny Tete and Rodrigo Muniz are all out whilst Sandor Berge may make a return from an ankle problem, though the weekend is seen as more likely.

And so to the wild and wacky world of Association Football. And every irony meter in the country spontaneously combusted the other night when Virgil Van Dyke went complaining to the referee in the League Cup semi-final that Bergvall shouldn’t have been on the pitch to score the winner in the first leg.


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That’s right, the player who receives something like a tenth of the yellows that he merits was complaining about one not being given when due. I think the word “karma” applies here. We should of course congratulate Spurs for pulling off the shock of the FA Cup 3rd round by getting past Tamworth. If you live in Haringey, look out for the open top bus celebrations later this week.

And so to us. Well for an hour we looked ok. Then the match officials intervened. For the second match running we fell victim to officials who saw something that simply didn’t happen.

Usually when referees mess up badly PGMOL step in with some sort of statement that rewrites the laws of the game to fit whatever horrendous error their employee has made. You know the sort of thing “yes the full back handled the ball on the line but that prevented the goal decision system from ascertaining whether or not the ball had crossed the line by six or eight inches so no goal was awarded”.

Well the recent events with David Coote may make one suspicious as to whether other officials have been ingesting substances not conducive to assisting decision-making in a group of people not exactly noted for their intellectual prowess in the first place. We’ll never know of course, PGMOL having decided that referees are so honest that drug testing isn’t required.

Which is a shame because I would welcome the sight of an official explaining how his colleague awarded a corner because he saw the ball deflect off a pink dragon which arose out of the ground, adding that he was “pretty sure” that the dragon was wearing a West Ham shirt and that the ref might have booked match-winner Roberts twice but he didn’t have the heart to do so when his face was melting like that.

I did suggest that Mr Potter’s first priority was to be luckier than his predecessor. Unfortunately, the injuries suggest that a few mirrors may have been broken on the way into his first training session. Fullkrug pulled up in absolute agony as he broke out of defence in pursuit of a clearance. It was a shame as his header at the start of what was a well-worked goal was superb.

Talking of the goal, fine finish it was from Paqueta. However, the Brazilian poses another priority for Mr Potter. Someone has to have a word about all this clutching his face and throwing himself to the floor stuff. It was a shame because he had had a decent first half and put in a lot of hard work.

How about fining the player two week’s wages each time he does it? If that doesn’t work he can go off to Liverpool where, no doubt, such antics are rewarded with bonuses.

Incidentally we have received numerous reports of the digital ticketing system in the away section at Villa Park playing up leading to congestion and serious overcrowding. Police blamed the club for trying to use the same access areas for 6,000 supporters as they would do for 3,000.


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Reports suggest that stewards reacted poorly to the situation and, in many cases, were conspicuous by their absence when the system refused to recognise digital tickets. Other reports suggest that the concourses were also overcrowded. They have Celtic shortly and Liverpool in March. The latter in particular are notorious for travelling without tickets, so they’ll need to get their act together at Villa Park.

On the injury front Mickey is still at the early stage of his rehab, Bowen’s probably looking at mid to end February for his return. Summerville is an odd one. When he pulled up it looked for all the world that he had caught hamstring from Fullkrug. However, after a couple of minutes of treatment he returned to the fray – something that is generally ill-advised when it comes to hamstring problems.

The word from the club is that his failure to reappear after the interval was precautionary in nature so there’s a possibility of seeing him on Tuesday evening at least. There’s been no update on either Todibo or Emerson so I’m assuming that they will be hors de combat until the weekend at the earliest.

The absence of Emerson led to one of the brighter things to come out of the match on Friday, namely the performance of young Mr Scarles who put in a fine performance at left-back, entirely justifying his selection over Cresswell. The defence looked much more stable than it does when Wan-Bissaka is shifted to the other side to shoehorn Coufal into his preferred right hand side.

So on to the prediction. Well the Predict-O-Matic-O-Tron Daisy bought me for Christmas fell at the first hurdle on Friday. When I called customer support to complain they blamed me for failing to boot up the Select Group Referee plug-in which throws in a random guess algorithm which matches the exact same way that PGMOL officials come to their decisions. I’ll try and factor that in this time.

I think I saw enough in the first half to be impressed with, my main worry being the lack of striking options. Ings was fairly anonymous last time out and there has been some talk that Kudus might be used up front. So much will depend on whether the fresh-start feelgood factor can outweigh the injury problems that face the squad at the moment.

Whilst I think that this is possible I’m going to give the Predict-O-Matic-O-Tron another chance and, having pressed the “English Referee” button, I will spend the £2 that would have been spent on a copy of the Blu-ray Spurs will no doubt be issuing in celebration of their win over Tamworth, just as soon as the open top bus parade is done, on a wager that the game will end in a 2-2 draw.

The money will be with you shortly, Mr Winstone. Enjoy the game!




When Last We met At The Olympic: Lost 0-2 Premier League March 2024
One of those “saving ourselves for Europe performances. A match marred by the visiting support merrily singing and chanting their way through a stoppage whilst young George Earthy received treatment following a rather sickening collision that knocked him unconscious.

Referee: Craig Pawson
Lets see what imaginary offences this week’s official can muster. He will be assisted by Stuart “blimey is he still in a job” Atwell on VAR.

Danger Man: Raul Jiminez
Top scorer and is likely to be a bit of a handful for the likes of Mavropanos.

Percy and Daisy’s Fulham Fact Of The Week Type Thing
Those of you who like old-fashioned crime stories may be interested to know that, in Agatha Christie’s The Seven Dials Mystery a number of the characters discuss visiting Craven Cottage to watch Fulham play. I am not a fan of the Christie oeuvre personally so I haven’t read the book but Daisy informs me that the culprit was Mohamed Fayed.

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