The middle of the line

ha ha ha ha ha. So much for European football weakening teams for the weekend games!

Danny Murphy again had an excellent game, and opened the scoring after nabbing the ball from Scholes and taking a simple shot from the edge of the box. It was clear that the Man U defence – featuring few of the regular starting players – were finding it tough to deal with the Whites, and at times they could not get the ball away. Even so, the Man U reserves are no pushovers, and Fulham had to be on their top form to come out on top.

Within seconds of the kick-off for the second half, Duff put a cross in from the right wing, for Dempsey to nod down into the path of Zamora for his fifth goal in four games. Bobby later set up the third goal for Duff to slot in, and had a shot saved near the end, to cap yet another fine performance.

Before the weekend, looking at the fixtures over the Christmas period (this one, Spurs on Boxing Day and away to Chelsea on the Monday after), I would have been happy with three points out of them in total. Now I’m not sure if we should be satisfied with less than 9. The league table is looking good as well. We have a game in hand (away to Stoke early in January), which means we could go above Liverpool – who were humiliated at Pompey yesterday afternoon – and there’s also a gap opening up behind Fulham, which should give the Club some confidence.