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Next up we return to home territory on Saturday where, at the sacred hour of 3pm, we will play host of Fulham.

There's loads of engineering works to cope with, particularly between Liverpool Street and Stratford, so get up early, shuffle back the Turkey leftovers for breakfast and check before you leave.




So Fulham, then. A bit of a mixed season so far. They won three, drew two and lost six of their first eleven games. A run that included four defeats in a row over the period between the end of September and the end of October.

They have improved a bit since then, winning four and losing two of their next six, beating Sunderland 1-0 at home and Spurs 2-1 at the Toilet Bowl. This was followed by a tight defensive game at home to Man City, where they lost 5-4.

Then, a 2-1 defeat at home to Palace before returning to winning ways at Burnley where they won 3-2 and most recently at home to Forest where they won one-nil. All of that has left them in 13th place with 23 points from 17 games. That's 10 points above us as we speak.

Now, here at the Avram Grant Olympic Rest Home for the Bewildered, we're still having internet problems thanks to a Sky organisation who thinks it's some sort of triumph that they'll be able to recollect us after only a full month. Which, by coincidence is the length of time I'm invoicing them for at £150 a day.

Oh, and if anyone from the misleadingly named "Sky customer service team" happens to be reading this, a promised call back within 72 hours is bad enough as it is when you treat that as at least 96 hours and counting, you deserve everything you're about to get, but thanks in advance for paying for our summer holiday.

The Internet stuff is, of course limiting Daisy's ability to conduct her usual in-depth research. That she was able to determine that they brought in a back-up 'keeper in the form of Benjamin Lecompte from Montpellier and Brazilian winger Kevin "so good they named him" from Shakhtar Donetsk.




As ever, though, we do have some injury and absentee news from the visitors. Rodrigo Muniz is a long term absentee with a thigh problem. Calvin Bassey, Samuel Chukwueze and Iwobi will all be sampling the cuppa soup down in Morocco.

Although not usually one to be getting the plaudits Iwobi will be will be a big miss for them. Whenever I've seen them on the box for them, he seems to make them tick.
Ryan Sessegnon's thigh is looking like a New Year job, whilst the in-form Wilson is rated only at 50/50 at the time of writing.

So without much further ado, let's move on to the wild and wacky word of Association Football. Well, it was a corker week for PGMOL who now have actually no defence on the charge that VAR is being used to cover up the appalling officiating that we have in this country.

Take Newcastle's non penalty. It was inconceivable that anyone with any passing knowledge of the laws of the game would not decide that Chalobah's full-blooded shove on Gordon, that left the letter thrown into the advertising hoardings, was a penalty.

Enter Andy Madley, who inexplicably decided that the challenge was legit. Still, VAR would rectify that, wouldn't it? No! Step forward Peter Banks, who, having observed his colleagues blunder, somehow agreed with his mate. It was a decision that no two professional officials could ever have come to, so when it was announced that a statement from the Premier League would be forthcoming we look forward to some explanation. LSD in the water supply maybe?

The announcement was a doozy. You see it wasn't a full blooded barge at all. Chalobah was merely "shielding the ball". The technical term for this statement is "a barefaced lie". However, it is a defence I intend to use should I ever encounter a member of Sky's customer service team. "I just shielded him face first into that brick wall, your honour, 31 times".




The Tottenham/Liverpool game was similarly mishandled by John Brooks. The sending offs were fine but the goal that turned out to be Liverpool's winner came, as so many of their goals do, as a result of a two-handed shove in the back of a defender. Again, clear as daylight for VAR. Again, completely ignored. Now it was only Tottenham, but it's still not right.

Remember the next time PGMOL lie in your face and tell you what imaginary percentage of decisions they got right this season. All of these will be counted as correct. Corrupt? They go beyond that.

And so to us. Well, it was a lousy weekend all round, wasn't it? I mean, nobody was expecting a win up there, but the quality of defending was about as PGMOL is at refereeing. I guess we're a bit better moving forwards in the second half, but a third was always going to be a killer and so it proved.

The defence needs sorting out soon and it's worrying that recent comments attributed to the manager appear to indicate that he's not aware of any deals in the offing. Now that's worrying for two reasons.

Firstly, it seems to indicate there may be no players on the radar in the first place. And secondly, it would seem to indicate that the radar screen is in the hands of David Sullivan. About as sensible an idea as leaving PGMOL in charge of VAR. I mean just look at the list of, what is it? Nearly 60 strikers was it that was signed under Sullivan.




We can add a new striker to this requirements as well, with Fullkrug seemingly off to Milan on a loan with an option deal. The German never recovered from getting injured within five minutes of getting off the plane at Stansted and he was never fit enough to put together a sustained run in the side, which in any case seemed singularly set up to play an a system desired to suit pretty much any player other than Fullkrug. A feature with which a fair percentage of those 50-odd strikers will have been familiar.

Fullkrug is unlikely to be in contention along with Fabianski. Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Malick Diouf are out in Africa, whilst Ollie Scarles has been passed fit and everyone else is available.

The results of last week did us few favours; Palace finally descending back to a more typical level of performance up at Leeds. Fulham helped a little bit on Monday by beating Forest, but such has been our failure to pick up three points instead of one - and one point instead of none of late - that even with a win on Saturday, we will start the new year in the drop zone.

Having said that, they didn't look that impressive against Forest and are eminently beatable, particularly given the quality of player action in the cuppa soup. So I'm going for us to end the year on a, well, let's call it a less low note by picking up three points.

So the £2.50 I was going to put towards the cost of a baseball bat for use when I next have to shield a Sky custom service rep will instead go on a home win. Make it 2-1 to us please, Mr. Winston. Enjoy the game and have a less lousy new year, if you must.

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