Well, looking at these two charts that is only sort of true.

Against Villa Paul Konchesky and John Painstil had almost double the amount of passes than against Everton. Not only that, but both had way more incomplete passes against Everton than Villa.Yet Fulham beat the Toffees and lost to the Villans.

The ball is round, no?

The obvious differences between the charts is the average location of each pass. Painstil was a threat on the wing against Everton — easy prediction alert: he’s going to score this season — and the stats show. Konch looks to be in the same position in both matches, but the direction of the passes were forward instead of sideways or backwards, and not a hive below the half line.

But there was so much more in this victory than the defeat two weeks ago. AJ and Zamora’s pairing should be canonized. Murphy is the catalyst to defense and offense. And Duff proves he still has it.

The lads are off to Sofia on Thursday to start the Europa League group stages.

Can’t really explain why, but I’ve always wanted to travel to Bulgaria. Luckily, my girlfriend was able to when she was studying abroad recently. She said it was quite filthy and decrepit — and that’s coming from someone living in Baltimore — with stray dogs running amok. To her, it was more remiscent of her time in South Africa than what is considered “Europe”. Which is maybe why I am fascinated by the nation, and the rest of Eastern Europe.

Hopefully the lads, and the fans, leave with a better impression. I’ll still be jealous. Or on second thought maybe not?

PFC CSKA Sofia (obviously, they’re the army team) is currently leading the Bulgarian A PFG (Professional Football Group) with four wins and a draw. Oh, and they’ve yet to concede a goal, while scoring 14. Nil-Nil written all over it.

Lastly, can’t stop listening to the new dirty projectors. Here’s their hit, but not best, song:

After cruising to a 3-0 lead, Amkar Perm rescue a crucial late away goal to blemish an otherwise respectable 3-1 result. And then we learn AJ will be out for 8 weeks with a dislocated shoulder/collarbone.

No wonder other managers throw in the towel in this competition at a certain point?

Roy is as incensed as ever, and for good reason. There isn’t any video footage of the match or assault from Dmitri Belorukov anywhere, but from what I understand it was a body check. A 5 minute major in hockey, plus suspension. A red card in footy, suspension in tow.

But instead Amkar, and Belorukov — only receiving a yellow — get to live on another day. Jerks.

And its interesting to note that Roy prepared the lads quite well without having seen much of them prior to today, according to the Daily Mail.

Hodgson’s side did not know much about their Russian opponents, who were founded just 15 years ago and are named after an ammonia-based fertiliser. F
ulham had relied on three matches of video footage after their manager had been unable to secure a visa to travel to Russia.

One positive about today is Duff’s triumphant arrival, assisting Zamora a mere 30 seconds into the his substitution appearance. Hope to see more good things from him, as Gera’s reviews have been consistently woeful.

Not really sure how much AJ’s injury screws up our plans for Sunday. I know long term Roy will have something figured out. But if its good news for anyone its good news for Eddie Johnson. Kamara is above him in the depth chart, but has not been as active during the preseason as EJ so its a little unclear who is our #3 now. Time for EJ to step up, finally.

Oh, and the Greening saga rekindled and then ended rather abruptly, again. But this time he’ll be joining us on a season-long loan. Huzzah!

And Adrian Leijer is going back to Australia. In his two years with the club made 6 total first team appearances — on the bench. While with Norwich for the second half of last season, he made just 4 actual playing appearances. Things can only improve for the lad.

Dempsey’s deflected shot off Zamora was enough for Fulham to win 1-0 over Pompey in a rather uneventful, if not typical away, match. Standard Hodgson.

Portsmouth occasionally threatened, attempting to stretch our defense with crosses from the wings but Schwarzer gobbled them up while Hangeland and Hughes smacked them away.

The only jaw dropping moment came when Pompey defender Marc Wilson whiffed on a header leaving little AJ a clear chance on goal. Either misjudging the bounce or hitting too hard, the gift sailed wide right.

For those wondering why I didn’t preview the team and season before today, I did it on purpose. I’m going to write a season preview once the transfer windows ends. Sure, it may be cheating as we’ll have played three matches — all against good opposition — and may be in or out of Europe by then.

But its sort of silly to write season previews before the window closes. Why? Because everything could be completely dated as of September 1. Look back at ManCity previews last year, or even Tottenhams — they were old news within a week. Not because they were over/underrated, but the actors changed.

Although I don’t see mountains moving for us before September 1, Duff is reportedly coming to town, KG is still stuck in a tribunal — I think — and may not be able to sign for us, and Arsenal could lodge a successful 15 million quid bid for Hangeland. Or Dempsey may even receive a similar deal from Everton. There’s just too many variables to be accurate or lasting.

No midweek Prem action, as the lads host Perm in the Europa League. Derby next weekend — should be a good one.

But yeah, Fulham won away and I’m not completely stunned. Strange days, indeed.

Brings a smile to your face, no?

Despite the pouring rain, Dickson Etuhu walked into the header that led to Fulham’s first goal and series icing. I missed the second goal, but am told Dempsey had a nice cross to AJ. Later, EJ received a pass from Dempsey and dribbled down to a few feet before the goal line and found AJ for a sitter. Romp over.

The draw for the (official) Play-Off Round is tomorrow. We’re seeded, so luckily (if I’m correct) we’ll be avoiding some tough opponents like Bremen, Shakthar, Roma and Valencia to name a few. But even being ranked 34th (of 76) via coefficient, the next round is going to be a bit tricky.

For a complete list of coefficients, Bert Kassies is again on point. Although I’ll post rankings tomorrow, here’s the breakdown:

Esteemed and storied company, eh?

And had it not been for Spurs being gifted 3 points, our ticket would already be punched thanks to today’s predictable (yet still anxious) 1-0 victory and West Ham losing.

Barrages came, the line held, Schwarzer saved, Kamara scored. Not too much else to say, really. Seeing AJ and Zamora start on the bench was odd, though.

We knew Newcastle would threaten, that they’d go after Gera and Pantsil, and that they couldn’t score — at least not have it count.

Look at this chalkboard, particularly the general locations of Steven Taylor’s and Danny Murphy’s passes.

Taylor was never allowed forward, and Murphy quickly passed in that denied space. Although Danny was 46/10 for successful/unsuccessful ratio, Taylor connected all 36. But it didn’t matter.

Newcastle appeared threatening, and almost scored several times, but they didn’t break us down. And, in my mind, that is what made the difference: we broke them down.

Looks like next weekend will be another stomach churner. A win — hopefully Moyes trots out the JV team — and we’re golden. A draw, and we have to hope Spurs don’t win by more than 6 goals. A loss, and we have to count on (the already vacationing) Liverpool side to win.

No Simon Davies going into it was not a usual site — that the first match he’s ever missed through injury? — and then Zamora goes down before I’m even fully awake.

Then AJ hobbles off. Later, it’s PK’s turn. Good observation by Roy, saying last 30 minutes were quite poor because of tired legs.

In my mind, the injuries probably hurt the midfield, not attack or defense, the most. Murphy looked totally gassed after the 65th minute or so but no help was available. Had there been fresh legs, then Fulham could have nipped one or two on the counterattack. But there was just not enough players forward, nor creativity between Kamz and Nevland. Thanks to Hangeland being the cookie monster he is with aerial balls, 1-0 was a fair result.

Hopefully AJ’s knee injury Roy spoke of doesn’t keep him out long. We need him in this final run — today Fulham had just 2 shots on target. Against Stoke City.

But at least we GJ got 70-plus minutes to swoon over Nevland. “I love that bloke” he said after Nevland put us 1-0 up.

Yes, GJ we know you do. In fact, we’ve known it since September. Glad you finally admitted it. Here’s hoping things work out between you two. [On a side note, does anyone have a photo of GJ? I've got a photoshop in mind but cant find an image of the lad anywhere]

Chelsea next week. Should be a cracker.

That that right there is our home form against the Big Four this season. Although Liverpool come to town in a fortnight and could muck it up, thats still an unbelievable stat.

After two matches in a month and 7-0 aggregate, what was so different this time around?

You could chalk it up to some visitation from lady luck. Or Scholes and Rooney, and possibly Ronaldo, going mental. Or Schwarzer’s finest performance of the season, worthy of a statue outside the Cottage, immediately.

But its simpler than that in my mind. For once, we attacked them.

Remember when Barcelona went through that rough patch? All the pundits said it was because people went after them, and they were so unused to it they buckled under the pressure.

The same can be applied for United. For most of the season teams were content with letting them do their thing. Granted their thing was the best thing around, but a 2-0 loss was inexplicably viewed as an accomplishment.

Our trip to Old Trafford highlighted that, as it seemed Roy’s pre-game talk consisted of “See you in 90!”. The FA Cup match at Craven Cottage strategy was slightly different, but still revered Carrick too much.

Today? We came out firing. Last week? Liverpool came out firing.

Although we learned Zamora doesn’t have a right foot, in case we didnt know already, he took a quarter(?) of the TWENTY-FOUR shots today. Johnson was not lethal, but a presence. The real change was in the middle of the park, as Murphy and Etuhu, and Dacourt once Murphy hurt his leg, were ferocious.

Like last week against ‘Pool, luck was not with the Red Devils. But neither were brains, thanks to Scholes’ gifting us what seemed at least a point, and Rooney sealing all three. There were moments were they seemed to be back on track, particularly the first 25-plus minutes of the second half.

We couldn’t hold onto the ball, and Schwarzer was called upon. Dacourt and particularly Kamara’s introduction helped steady the ship. Especially Gera…

Who I would be remiss to not congratulate, as I actually yelled the f-word when he was subbed in. Now? I’ll bite my tongue. What a finish.

One interesting tidbit though: because Liverpool drew the match and lost the title at the same time, Fulham are tied for the second-best home record in the league with, well, Liverpool. Ten points behind United. And 8 points atop the Fair Play table!

So here’s a cute photo for you.

Although, in theory, Fulham should have walked all over the K-Town minnows, it was anything but a walk in the park, even at 4-2. K-Town came out to play, and even got lucky on their two goals: one off a silly Gera deflection and another on a soft penalty call. A proper cup football match.

Hats off to Roy for subbing when he did, because the beginning of the second half was dreadful. And speaking of, Gera and Etuhu are *officially* not ready for prime-time. You could tell Roy was playing both Etuhu and Andreasen to see which dog would become the alpha, and it was clearly evident Leon was up for the task. Expect him to start Tuesday.

And Gera, well, you have until Feb.2 to make a move and find a Bullard-esque replacement Roy. Get busy.

Other shout-outs must include Dempsey, who even late in the second half was playing at 110-percent; Stoor, whose crosses were quite accurate; Zamora, for changing the game on its head when stepping onto the pitch; and the club for scoring four goals away from home!

When was the last time we did that you may ask? November 10, 2004 against Nottingham Forest in the Carling Cup. When Bush just got re-elected president.

When, or if, the offal uploads extended highlights I’ll be sure to post them up.

Today was the draw for the fourth round, and Fulham drew non-league side Kettering Town Football Club. Some interesting tidbits about the club: their chairman is from Kenya (only in England?), are huge proponents of the “humanitarian” (what that means exactly is unclear) issue in Palestine and wear it on their kits, and had Paul Gascoigne as a manager — for 39 days.

Considering all the other clubs we could have faced, this is probably one of if not the easiest. But it also has a HUGE “banana peel” potential and could redefine “Fulhamish” for a generation. We’ll wait and see, but I like our chances.

I’m really hoping for a good cup run.