Fulham Tonight

While nearly most of the football focuse tonight will be on the Champions League and in particular the match at Old Trafford between Manchester United and Inter Milan, Fulham have a match this evening against Blackburn. The match is a reschedule that resulted from a frozen pitch preventing play back in January.

Tonight's match is the eighth in a series of nine games which Fulham have played or will play in teh space of just four weeks. The players have to be getting a little tired and thus Blackburn, who have had the advantage of having nearly two weeks off, will be fresh. But the game is at the Cottage, where Fulham have been strong all season.

Blackburn currently sit at 18th in the league table on 27 points, while Fulham sit tenth on 34 points. A win by Fulham will almost guarnatee that they will stay up with just 10 matches to play in the league. A Blackburn win will vault the Rovers out of the drop zone and put them two point clear.

Fulham really need the win in advance of a pretty tough run in for the final games. Here are the last ten games for Fulham this year:

Bolton away
Manchester United at home
Liverpool at home
Manchester City away
Middlesbrough away
Stoke City at home
Chelsea away
Aston Villa at home
Newcastle away
Everton at home.

Of the 10 games remaining, Fulham will face six top ten teams. The Bolton game in particular is a six pointer that can put some distance between Fulham and the bottom of the table. But Fulham's away form is still prety bad and really, getting a point from the away matches will be important. In the last three games Villa and Everton may be competing for European spots.

It will be tough, but it is looking like the drop zone cut will be around 35 points or so, but to be safe a solid 8 points in the final 11 games will certainly see Fulham safe and perhaps even in the top half of the table.