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Fulham v Everton: great chance for Blues to keep winning

By Matt Townsend

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 29: Cyrus Christie of Fulham and Lucas Digne of Everton compete for the ball during the Premier League match between Everton FC and Fulham FC at Goodison Park on September 29, 2018 in Liverpool, United Kingdom. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 29: Cyrus Christie of Fulham and Lucas Digne of Everton compete for the ball during the Premier League match between Everton FC and Fulham FC at Goodison Park on September 29, 2018 in Liverpool, United Kingdom. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images) /
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As the Premier League season nears its conclusion Everton are back in London for they’re fourth consecutive match against a capital side as they take on Fulham on Saturday.

This game represents a great chance for the Toffees to continue their recent winning run as Everton take on a side that has endured a horrible season and have just been relegated to the Championship.

So on paper this looks like a match the Blues really ought to win comfortably. But that shouldn’t let any complacency creep in on Everton’s part.

In truth though this does certainly look like the least challenging of the Toffees current run of games against London teams.

However Everton have a record this season of producing some of their least convincing performances against lower league teams away from home. Some of the most dismal results that Blues fans have endured are losing efforts at places like Brighton and Newcastle.

Fulham as I say have had a very difficult season. They spent big in the summer and embarked on the current campaign with some optimism.

Some of the players they signed looked reasonable investments too. In particular getting Aleksandar Mitrovic from Newcastle, who had been such a good player on loan the previous season, looked a good acquisition.

But the initial optimism around Craven Cottage didn’t last long. Very quickly the Cottagers season began to unravel as they lurched from one heavy defeat to another. They were especially weak defensively conceding goals at an alarming rate.

After a few months of terrible results Fulham pulled the plug on manager Slavisa Jokanovic bringing in Claudio Ranieri in an almost palpably desperate attempt to try to revive their fortunes.

But their hope that the Italian could repeat the trick he had managed at Leicester City was not to be.

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But despite a short-lived revival, after just over 100 days in charge he too was sacked. Slightly bizarrely having got rid of Ranieri, Scott Parker was brought in to oversee what by then seemed a virtually inevitable relegation.

All this means Fulham should be suffering from a chronic lack of confidence. Perhaps though having got rid of the burden of trying to defy football gravity and been relegated can allow a team to play with more freedom.

Everton are in great form at the moment and their 1-0 win over Arsenal last weekend was a truly outstanding performance. Another similar effort would surely bring another three points and hopefully a few more goals too.