Fulham v Spurs Preview

Saturday sees a resurgent Tottenham Hotspur visit Craven Cottage. Spurred on by the appointment of Harry Redknapp, Spurs have turned around their poor start to the season and are no won a six game unbeaten run, five wins and a draw. Fulham though will be confident after beating Newcastle last Sunday and will be looking to complete a home double over North London sides after beating Arsenal at Craven Cottage earlier this season.

Roy Hodgson enters the fixture with his side keen to get off to a good start and match the fashion in which they started against Newcastle last Sunday remarking,

"The way we started the game against Newcastle, the first 20-25 minutes, I thought we looked a quality team."

How about we maintain that sort of performance level for ninety minutes then?

After exiting the Carling Cup, in an earlier round, Roy Hodgson might have appreciated the additional time off it has allowed his squad to have. Barring any injuries picked up in training it`s hard to see any immediate changes to the starting eleven that Roy seems to prefer. As far as we are aware there are no suspensions looming, therefore we expect Roy to pin the following team sheet up on the dressing room wall

Scharwzer, Pantsil, Hughes, Hangeland, Konchesky, Davies, Bullard, Murphy, Gera, Johnson and Zamora.

With regards the substitutes, we have no news on whether Seol Ki-Hyeon has overcome his knee injury but we`ll endeavour to find out in due course.

Out of our squad, Simon Davies, Danny Murphy and Bobby Zamora will all be eager to impress against their former employers whilst Paul Konchesky will also be keen to do well against a club he once spent a spell on loan with.

The Welshman, once again selected for the Welsh squad for their fixture next week, will be keen to put in a good performance against his former club. Hopefully it`ll involve netting the winner against them, now wouldn`t that be nice?

Spurs go into the contest hoping to clinch their first back-to-back away Premier League victories since the season before last, if they do so they`ll leap-frog Fulham in the table.

Harry Redknapp`s biggest concern will be whether his keeper, Gomes, will have recovered sufficiently to play after being carried off on a stretcher with a head injury in their fine 4-2 win over Liverpool, in the Carling Cup, on Wednesday night.

Fulham supporter`s will be hoping he has revered so Zamora and Johnson can take advantage of his erratic errors.

Written off by many a football pundit but seems to have recovered his scoring boots under the guidance of Harry Redknapp. Let`s hope that Brede Hangeland and Aaron Hughes can stifle him making it an ineffective afternoon for the £17 million buy from Charlton Athletic.

Fulham have the upper hand in meetings between the two sides at Craven Cottage with 4 to the 1 of Spurs with 2 fixtures having been drawn. In all League fixtures between the two sides at Craven Cottage, Spurs have the upper hand with 11 wins to the 7 of Fulham with 11 having ended all square.

Last season the two teams played out a thrilling 3-3 draw with Fulham taking a share of the spoils thanks to two late goals from Smertin and Kamara after Spurs led 3-1 with thirteen minutes (plus stoppage time) left.

Alan Wiley (Staffordshire)

They say all good things come to an end and Spurs recent run of fine results is no exception. They may be on the crest of a wave but every wave, as we know eventually comes crashing down. With two difficult away trips ahead of us in Liverpool and Aston Villa, its essential we get something from the match this weekend. Buoyed by the fine win over Newcastle I have this growing feeling that we`ll be celebrating a second home win in a week, 2-1, just like last weekend.

Next on the agenda are two tricky away games against Aston Villa and Liverpool, starting with Liverpool.

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