Super Saturday: Fulham v Everton Preview

Article by e-Everton Correspondent Kenneth Jarvis

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It's a much used cliché in football that the winners of the league will have to win ugly at times. The cliché is the same for any team that wants to achieve their goals, sometimes things wont be going your way and you have to find a way to win. Everton are on a run of four consecutive league wins, but that belies how hard those four games were. The West Ham match was your typical match against an Allardyce team where you just have to win as you know they will stop you from playing, it took Everton until the 81st minute to do so however. Everton won the Cardiff match with two lucky goals and were dominated in the match statistics against Swansea, except of course, in the goals column. Against Newcastle Everton were under the cosh in the early stages and survived a end to end first half. What happened after that however gives great optimism for the rest of the season as Osman, Barkley, Deulofeu and Lukaku showed great form.

The last two matches also may have showed a slight change in Martinez' tactical flexibility as Everton have won both matches with less possession than the opposition. With Moyes it used to appear quite obvious, when he picked a team that the majority of Everton fans didn't like, we usually struggled. Martinez before this match picked Osman to play on the left, to much criticism from the Everton faithful. But whereas Moyes would have tried to play him like a winger, Martinez played him in a similar way to how Guardiola used Gotze recently when Ribery was injured. Obviously Osman is not Gotze but it worked. Osman played well and we won 3-0. I said on twitter that I'd wait until the match started before making judgement, I'm glad I did, otherwise I'd be eating a big slice of humble pie. In Martinez we trust.

On to Fulham then. Previous fixture history is used a lot in the lead up to games but all Everton fans know our long-term record at Fulham, but I think it holds little relevance here. It's a game we should win, it's a game we need to win. Often you can look at fixture list with great optimism, only to end the weekend ruing missed opportunities. That being said, this weekend could be another huge one of Everton. Naturally after Tuesday Everton fans are only looking forward to 4th place but Tottenham and Manchester United are still in the back of our minds. You'd look at the point gap to Manchester United and think any other team would not be able to catch us, however after around a quarter of a century of Man Utd being, well, Man Utd, you are still left with a hint of doubt. If they were to catch us however, we would have failed badly in our remaining fixtures, it's very likely that we'll be in Europe now. Tottenham are still there and would also be interested in a slip-up for Arsenal, however being away to Liverpool could leave them further behind us.

So speaking of Arsenal. 6 points behind with a game in hand and on the 6th of April they will come to Goodison park in what will be one hell of an atmosphere with the game nearly sold out already. We also play Man Utd at Goodison on the 20th of April witch I am similarly looking forward to. This date may change if Man Utd beat Bayern Munich in their Quarter Final. So it will defiantly be on the 20th . .

Arsenal play Man City at home on Saturday. I may be getting too far ahead of myself but I just hope the players aren't. We need to take each game at a time and focus on controlling what we can control. People may say our season will be decided by the Arsenal match or the Man Utd match but it wont, it will more likely be decided at the likes of Fulham away. We need to win all the matches that we are expected to win, if not then we wont be finishing 4th.

It's rare that you get an easy match in the Premier League and Everton certainly haven't had many this season and haven't at Craven Cottage either. A win akin to the likes of Swansea and Cardiff would do here, however stressful but the second half performance against Newcastle and the form of Barkley, Lukaku and Deulofeu gives hope for a more relaxing afternoon. If we are on 60 points by 3.30 on Sunday, it won't matter either way.

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