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Dennis Bergkamp is rated at 50-50 for tomorrow's visit of Fulham, and faces a late fitness test. Apparently he has
a badly bruised foot, suffered during the Liverpool game,
which I guess sheds some light on his much-criticised
substitution in that game. Arsene Wenger brought him off with 5 minutes to go, bringing on Oleg Luzhny. Ok so it was in response
to them bringing on an extra attacker, but the message to Liverpool was "why don't you have the ball for the rest of the game".
Freddie Ljungberg and Rami Shaaban are the only definite absentees, and Freddie is thought to be quite close to
a return to action. Martin Keown is back fro his one-match ban.
New signing Guillaume Warmuz could be on the bench... but doesn't Stuart Taylor deserve more?
Fulham striker Louis Saha is expected to be back from a 3-week absence. They could do with something up front: since December 15th, Fulham have played 7 games, and scored a grand total of 3 goals.
Goalie Edwin van der Saar is out with a broken bone in his foot,
and midfielder Lee Clark misses the game (and a few more) with a calf injury.
Left-back Rufus Brevett misses the game through having joined West Ham just before the transfer window closed.
Despite a promising start to his Fulham career, Arsenal old-boy Junichi Inamoto has been used only sporadically by Jean Tigana
and will probably be on the bench (he's got 9 sub appearances in the league to 6 starting). Luis Boa Morte is a more likely
starter. He picked up a 5th booking of the season in their last match but the ban won't start till after the Arsenal game.
Rupe adds...
Inamoto has been left off of Fulham's provisional squad list for the match. The webmaster at FulhamWeb is as mystified as we are... "Maybe he has done himself in after watching the rest of the squad commit
suicide at Manchester. On the other hand maybe Jean is holding the news back
to unsettle Arsene," he says. Ina was definitely on the bench for their last game (the 4-1 reversal at Man City to which he refers).
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