The New Coventry?

Coleman was right when he moaned about the Premiership schedule the other day. The two weeks between the bore-draw at Wigan and Saturday's forthcoming fixture have really dragged. There's a feeling of unfinished business in the air, and yet no chance of a resolution before the weekend. In particular it will be interesting to see how Liam responds to the criticism he received. I really like him, so I hope it will motivate him to really show how good he can be.

The long running Coleman In/Coleman Out debate on TFi really comes down, in my opinion, to one question. Are we content with just staying in the Premiership or do we think we should be achieving much more than that? I think it's pretty clear that, at the moment, the chairman and the board are content with just staying up and gradually increasing the profitability of the club. I have, so far, felt that way to some extent too and I still believe that the longer Fulham remain in the top division, the stronger we will become as a team and the greater our opportunity for winning a cup or playing in Europe. However, there does need to be some level of entertainment to make it all worthwhile, and that's the big thing we seem to be missing at the moment.

I remember "back in the day" as we began another, ultimately fruitless, attempt to escape the third division, having a particular dislike for Coventry City. Every year they would avoid relegation without too much anxiety, yet never have a season when they even looked like achieving anything exciting. OK they won the F.A.Cup one year, but that was a fluke, right? I think Fulham are in danger of becoming the new Coventry City and to be honest, I really don't think that's something I want to aspire to. Maybe being in the Premiership is something you only really appreciate when you're not in it anymore, but right now I think I'd rather see a heroic Fulham team playing a bit of football and going down, than a dour one achieve another 13th place finish.

I'm hoping for a stirring performance against Pompey on Saturday, I reckon we owe them a bit of a thumping after last season, and a chance for a flair players (particularly Routledge & Montella) to show us what they can do. Come on Chris give us what we want, a few goals and a proper game of football.