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Will Cookie break his duck?

Fulham tries once again on Wed to finally get a road win. Besides the pressure of being the only professional team in England without a road win this year, they will have to do it at Anfield vs. a struggling Liverpool side.

I think what makes Liverpool so tough to break down and beat is that they are have two excellent ball-winning central midfielders (Alonso and Hamann) as well as two dynamite central defenders in Carragher and Hyypia. When teams are facing with this formidable task, they decide to focus their attack on the wings. The problem occurs when the wingers cannot beat Liverpool’s outside defenders and are forced to play early balls into the box with the hope of winning something in the air. With both Hyypia and Carragher so solid in the air, they usually have enough coverage since most teams only have one excellent target player up front. While McBride and Helguson are both very good, they will clearly have their work cut out for them. Even if one of them is somehow able to win a clean header, Pepe Reina is extremely tough to beat.

Fulham’s best hope would be to play Diop and Elliott in central midfield with Boa Morte and Malbranque on the outside. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that Diop will be fit enough to play so Malbranque will most likely have to play in the middle. That leaves Boa Morte to try and beat his old teammate Steve Finnan. Finnan, a very capable defender, will allow the Fulham captain to work the wing, but will not permit him to cut it back into the middle. What makes Finnan’s job a bit more difficult is that Alonso will miss the game due to his two yellows that he received vs. Arsenal last week.

On the other end, Liverpool has absolutely dominated games lately, especially at Anfield, but has had trouble hitting the back of the net. They seem to make every keeper they see look fantastic (witness Myre’s performance for Charlton a few weeks back). Benitez has a ton of options upfront, but none seemed to be working at the moment. Their best hope is to get Harry Kewell or Luis Garcia in a one-on-one matchup with Moritz Volz in a counter. When Kewell has been given chances lately, he’s been able to finish them.

For the most part, the Cottagers has been pretty steady in defense, but seem to suffer momentary lapses on the road which have cost them dearly. They played extremely well vs. Bolton at the Reebook, but then Knight and Bocanegra got totally bullied off the ball by Kevin Nolan (hard to believe he’s not in the England squad for Germany!) which allowed him to score the winning goal. The lack of communication between Fulham’s two central defenders led to Everton’s first goal this past weekend. James Beattie made a run off of Bocanegra who failed to properly pass him off to Knight. This allowed Beattie to get behind Knight who then compounded the error with a clumsy challenge which led to a penalty kick.

Fulham seems to have a lack of confidence on the road and play as if they expect to lose. If they can somehow draw first blood, it will be interesting to see how Liverpool reacts. For my prediction, I’m picking the Reds to win 2-0. (George)