The day, the game (Fulham) and beyond

The transfer window past us without any signings, the vocal supporters who disagree with everything (levy, no transfers and anything else they can throw at the club) came out in force to play their usual games and to show that they knew better than everybody else. But, to be fair, you’ve got to love them. Without such supporters we probably would have no debates, nothing to laugh at and I wouldn’t be writing this article and life would probably be a lot more boring.

To the game on Saturday. This was our second game, the first showed our tiredness and lack of cohesion, but we won. Poor performance and victory will always trump good performance and defeat. That is the way of things. So, one up and a trip to Wembley – back to the future, or is that the past? – to face Fulham.

Even though Fulham lost their opening game against Palace, they showed promise, bought well in the transfer window and have impressed the pundits. So they were here to do damage, the last time they had visited the home of English football they got themselves promoted to the Premier League (beating Aston Villa). All good so far, at least for them. So, they felt positive.

As I said earlier we didn’t buy, at the same time we didn’t sell, but that can work in our favour. The squad have been working together for a few seasons, with players coming and going, but now, there has been no disruption in fitting a new recruit into the team. More consistency than negativity. The way we performed in the last two games has shown us that we’ve got stronger, even though it is just after two games. The real test will come when we’ve had injuries, by that time – hopefully – Son should be back, but with Lamela’s performance and Winks getting back to fitness and coming on to replace Kane, then Dembele replacing Sanchez we might not have anything to worry about.

We also had a far stronger squad than last week. Trippier was back after not being entirely fit for the Newcastle game. Toby Alderweireld showed his metal, after being previously on the bench last week and even Danny Rose got into the act as one of the substitutes. Of course, all this could blow up, and the Jabberwock’s will be shouting at the top of their voice that they were more experts than the experts and if they had been given the manager’s job they would have won everything before Christmas and probably allowed the players to have the rest of the season off.

But I was satisfied with the squad on Saturday, the substitutions and performances. That doesn’t mean that there still isn’t a lot of work to do, as Mauricio Pochettino pointed out. But I think we are going to get there, especially with what I saw out there against Fulham at Wembley.

To top the day of Arsenal got beaten 3-2 by Chelsea; granted, not everything positive, but positive enough. And as for United… Brighton isn’t really a place to be for some… probably too much weather attentiveness and not enough sports-related activity.

Oh, and they said he couldn’t score at the beginning of any season, try telling that to Fulham players and see how they would laugh! We were in hysterics with that one, I can tell you. Early days though, early days. Next up will be United at Old Trafford.