Fulham FC — Fulham v Southampton — 6 January 2018

70 The Official Fulham FC Matchday Programme

16061_Predator_Fulham_148x210mm_OL.indd 1 11/15/17 8:45 AM

I

love the FA Cup but it’s not

a competition that was very

kind to me as a player. I don’t

think I ever got any further than

the Fourth Round.

At Fulham, we were always the

bridesmaid and never the bride.

We got some good results against

the top sides and took a few to

replays, but we never got the

scalp of a big team.

The older ones of us can

remember when everything

stopped for Cup Final day. You

had a camera at the hotel with

each team and then on the coach

on the way to Wembley. It built

up the suspense. Over the years,

though, attitudes have changed.

The Premier League is seen as

more important and managers

have looked at the competition as

a development stage for younger

players. When I played, the

likes of Manchester United and

Liverpool fielded their strongest

side because it was a competition

they wanted to win. I think that

only comes about now when

teams get to the Quarter-Final and

Wembley is in sight.

There’s a book called Dr Jekyll

and Mr Hyde and that sums up our

season so far. Up until recently,

the manager didn’t know what

player was going to show up on a

Saturday. We’ve been brilliant one

week and then awful the next.

I said in my last programme

notes that December and early

January was going to be a very

important for us and that the four

games over the Christmas and

new year period could well define

our season. Thankfully it’s been a

phenomenal few weeks. A lot of

other teams will be looking at us

and thinking, ‘Uh oh, this is what

they did last season’.

I know Ipswich went down to 10

men on Tuesday but sometimes

that actually makes things harder.

But the confidence seems to be

back, we’re breaking quicker and

getting the ball in the area and

when we do get it in there, we’re

getting numbers in the box.

Aboubakar Kamara’s equaliser

at Hull is a good example of our

new-found self-assurance. If he

was struggling for form, he may

have tried to hit the shot first

time because he didn’t want to be

closed down. But he took a touch,

held the defender off and passed it

into the net for a quality finish.

We’ve been looking for

consistency and quality and over

the last few weeks it’s started

to come. We’ve had a poor first

half of the season but now we’re

four points off the Play-Offs. The

only team running away from

us is Wolves, but if we get on a

run, second spot isn’t out of the

question.

The transfer window is now

open and it has become an

overpriced market, a good

example being the £75m today’s

opponents received from

Liverpool for Virgil van Dijk. I

was playing golf with a friend

a few months ago and we were

talking about the fee Neymar

went to Paris Saint-Germain for.

I worked out you could have got

40,000 of me for one of him! The

figures these days are ridiculous

but if Liverpool go on to win

trophies, then they’ll see £75m

as a bargain. Shahid Khan has

said he’s prepared to back us in

the transfer market as long as it’s

someone who suits our style of

play. You can’t expect Fulham to

spend crazy money and rightly so.

It could be a good time to be

playing Southampton as they’re

struggling in the Premier

League, with just one victory

in their last nine games. I can’t

see them playing their strongest

team with the position they’re

in. They’re not having a good run

and I expect Fulham to win if we

do what we do best. You never

know, it might be a precursor to

next season!

Gordon Davies,

Fulham’s record

goalscorer, pens his

regular column in

the official matchday

programme...

“There’s a book called

Dr Jekyll and Mr

Hyde and that sums

up our season so far”

FFC-070-Gordon.indd 70 04/01/2018 14:53