Another shock on the cards?
That appeared to be the message that former Fulham man Tony Gale was trying to get across when talking about Fulham’s next two games. A rather daunting task having to play the previous two Premier League champions back to back, but speaking to the Fulham website, Gale thinks that the schedule might actually work in our favour when you consider what the other teams are up against:
“It could be a good time to play these teams as it’s Champions League this week, and they’ve both got another one next midweek. In my opinion, pre- and post-Champions League is when you want to be coming up against the top teams. Brighton was a good example of that as they played Liverpool in between two European fixtures, and ended up getting a very well deserved point.”
I appreciate the optimism from Gale going into this set of fixtures, but for me I just can’t see it. I get where he is coming from in regards the fixture congestion and how it could pile up and possibly cause tired legs (perhaps something Leicester City has when they played us having been pushed to the end by Braga), I can’t see that happening for Man City and Liverpool.
Will Scott Parker last the season?
Yes
No
If you take a look at their line up against Porto, you’ll see a number of first-team players didn’t make the cut and were rested ahead of the game, and with Liverpool having wrapped up top spot in their group added to Jürgen Klopp’s strong views regarding fixture congestion and it looks almost certain he’ll rest players in their final group game ready to get three points in the Premier League.
And whilst we might be beneficiaries of getting more rest of the whole squad between games as we’ll be playing weekend to weekend, I just don’t see how that is going to benefit us more than the bigger sides who have far more quality at their disposal to use as their trump card if you will.
So I think this might just be a case of damaged limitations when we play these guys. And whilst that may have been the intention and thought process going into the Leicester City game, I think Manchester City and Liverpool are a different kettle of fish when it comes to talent and firepower, so the chances of a shock are that less likely to occur.
Still, we’ll wait and see.
What about you? What do you make of Gale’s comments?