October is my favourite month of the year. I suppose it stems from the fact that my birthday is in October, but I have also always loved the colours of the trees at the this time of the year, and the fireworks at the end of the month. In Northern Ireland we don’t celebrate Guy Fawkes night, but we do have fireworks etc on Halloween night, so I always associate October with birthdays and fireworks. Last year Fulham really put a dampener on my normally high spirits in October with four lacklustre displays and therefore four disappointing results. We scrapped draws against Preston and Wigan at home, while we were beaten comfortably by both Aston Villa and Bristol City. It had already been a poor start to the season, and a fair few fans had already started to believe that promotion wasn’t a realistic target. Fast forward a few months, and Fulham were smack-bang in the middle of a push up the table, showing that a slow start isn’t the end of the world.
We have started slowly this season with just the one win so far from our seven games and 16 goals conceded. It doesn’t look great on paper, but it could also look a lot worse. We have to remember that Fulham have started the past few seasons relatively slowly, and have then ended up doing very well. We have had to deal with a massive jump up in quality as well as integrating so many new players into our club. I fully believe that we will have a good run of results soon and that the performances will improve as the players adjust to the league so we just have to hang in there and continue to support the team.
It would be amazing to start October with a win, but it will be extremely difficult against an Arsenal side who have won eight games on the bounce in all competitions. It’s a new era for Arsenal under Unai Emery, but the Spaniard seems to be settled in well at the Emirates with his side sitting 5th in the table after a real rocky opening few matches. They will have to overcome some European jetlag after their trip to Qarabag in Azerbaijan, but as it was a much changed side in the week, we shouldn’t count on the same levels of tiredness that Burnley had back in August.
We have a reasonably good record against Arsenal at home, with three wins, a draw and four defeats in our last eight games against them in the league. While this isn’t ground-breaking, it’s decent enough form for us against a traditionally much stronger club. Could Fulham repeat the wins of 2012, 2008 or 2006 this Sunday?
While Arsenal are on a rich run of form, we should note that they have only kept two cleansheets in the league this season. With Petr Cech looking like he might miss out because of an injury sustained last week, there could be a real opportunity for our front three to have a productive game. At the other end of the pitch, however, we will have to be weary of a side who have 14 goals already this season. Our defence has been our weakest point this year, and we will be without Joe Bryan and Timothy Fosu-Mensah for certain after the pair were forced off last week injured. I’d imagine that Ryan Sessegnon will revert to left back with Cyrus Christie on the right. I thought Christie was really poor last week, so hopefully we see some improvement this time around.
We have missed a fit Tom Cairney over the past few games, and I absolutely think that he makes the difference for us in midfield. While I agree that Seri is probably the best player to wear a Fulham shirt for years, I think we have missed Cairney’s awareness and knowledge of the English game in there. Hopefully we see him start on Sunday.
#COYW
