Fulham In The Cup...again.

This weekend once again brings with it the FA Cup, this time it is the forth round and we once again have to play Fulham; this is getting to be quite a regular occurrence now having played them a number of times in the competition in recent years.
In all this will be the sixth meeting In the cup, Tottenham coming out on top In all previous games. We have already played them twice in the league this year as well, having done the double over them with a 2-1 away win and a 1-0 home victory.

So the advantage is most certainly in our corner, however as we all know the cup is one of those competitions where anything can happen and this tie could potentially be one of those. Fulham spanked Peterborough 6-2 In the previous round and will have a degree of confidence from their recent results, they have only picked up 5 league wins all season however 3 of those have come in the last 6 games so it could be potentially interesting.

I cant see the team having too many surprises In It, Charlton gave Harry the chance to experiment slightly but Fulham give us a bigger challenge. They played very well at The Lane on new years day and quite frankly we were lucky to win the game in the end - hopefully we can pull a better performance out of the bag as we are most certainly going to need it.

Bale is still out injured and joins Huddlestone (who looks to have hit a setback) and King on the injury list. It looks like Sandro has taken a knock, along with Palacios who has a swollen knee. The good news is that BAE and Gomes should be back, Pav also looks to be fit again so could well start - In particular this game gives him a chance to pull his finger out and put some effort in, we'll see. Anyway my line up would be as follows:

                                               Gomes
                              Corluka-Dawson-Gallas-BAE
                              Lennon-Jenas-Modric-Pienaar
                                          Defoe-Crouch

What, no VdV I hear you say?! I just cant see him starting tomorrow, i think Harry will take the opportunity to give him a rest, I do expect him to be on the bench though - ready to come on after Crouch has flopped again (hopefully I'm wrong!). Also I would start Kranjcar as I see him as a better player than Pienaar, unfortunately I cant see Harry doing this though.
If Palacios proves his fitness he'll start ahead of Jenas but looking at the current whispers it'll be a last minute call.
My prediction? It'll be a close one, this game does have draw written all over it, perhaps 1-1 but I'm going to go with a repeat of our win earlier in the season and say a 2-1 triumph.

I really do hope however that we give a better account of ourselves atmosphere-wise at the game this time, unfortunately I cant make this round but I was at The Lane for the game on new years day and the noise levels were woeful. Whether it was the booze the night before I'm not sure but it was the quietest Ive ever seen it. At one point I was the only person standing and singing in my area in the Park Lane end - those around me even gave me the evil eye! Sorry for singing at the football.

Transfer news!
Yesterday i said that following the Chelsea bid for Torres i hoped that the last few days of the transfer window would step up a gear. It appears they have.

It looks like we have made a big money bid for Andy Carroll, the exact figure varies but it looks to be about £23/25 million! The barcodes have predictably rejected this so time will tell if we will go back in with an improved offer. I cant help but think this is a bit of a last ditch attempt to get a striker in, especially after everyone else we have looked at has fallen through. However this is a show on intent from Spurs which is quite nice to see - watch this space!