A brilliant Rafael Van der Vaart strike guided Tottenham Hotspur to a 1-0 win at Watford while Marouane Fellaini's decisive second-half goal saw off Fulham in Friday's all-Premier League FA Cup Fourth Round clash at Goodison Park.

Van der Vaart struck right before half-time from 30-yards out to stun Vicarage Road and give the Spurs a slender advantage that the hosts were not able to overturn.

Have you ever seen anything like it?

One of the worst first half performances in memory. Newcastle were very impressive, well drilled, pressurising perfectly, timing their confrontations and ganging up on our players relentlessly. We couldn't keep the ball. They could, spraying it around and running us ragged.

Arsene Wenger made it clear that poor officiating has taken its toll on Arsenal's season but admitted that his own defense was 'stupid' in conceding twice at Fulham last night.

The Gunners were leading 1-0 through Laurent Koscielny's early goal but a disappointing second half performance allowed their opponents to bounce right back into the match.

This shot of Andre Villas-Boas subtly reminds us of a similar pose Dunga held two years ago when Brazil were losing to the Netherlands en route to the World Cup semi-finals! It's one that screams "Estou desesperada!" (I'm desperate!) .

Clint Dempsey and Fulham headlined another day of National Teamers in action in England's Premier League. Fulham beat Arsenal 2-1 at Craven Cottage, the latest in a series of games where elite clubs have stumbled. Arsenal led from the 21st minute, but were reduced to ten men when Johan Djourou was sent off in the 78th.

Fulham vs Arsenal 2-1 2012 Highlights Video Goals Koscielny Sidwell Zamora Djourou Red card Video is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter

Fulham vs Arsenal 2-1 2012 Highlights Video Goals Koscielny Sidwell Zamora Djourou Red card Video is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter Fulham vs Arsenal 2012 ( Fulham Arsenal video below) Final score and result:- Fulham vs Arsenal 2-1 ( Sidwell, Zamora/ Koscielny) 2 January, 2012- Craven Cottage, London- 17.

Chelsea moved back up to fourth place in the Premier League after picking up a 2-1 away victory against Wolves, although it took an 89th-minute winner by Frank Lampard to end Chelsea's four-match winless run.

Stephen Ward thought he had done enough to earn Wolves their fourth consecutive draw when he cancelled out Ramires's second-half effort with just five minutes remaining, but Lampard pounced to take the Blues a point above Arsenal, who failed to reclaim fourth spot after losing 2-1 at Fulham.

Chelsea moved back up to fourth place in the Premier League after picking up a 2-1 away victory against Wolves, although it took an 89th-minute winner by Frank Lampard to end Chelsea's four-match winless run.

Stephen Ward thought he had done enough to earn Wolves their fourth consecutive draw when he cancelled out Ramires's second-half effort with just five minutes remaining, but Lampard pounced to take the Blues a point above Arsenal, who failed to reclaim fourth spot after losing 2-1 at Fulham.

Will need to step up tonight

What a wonderful night of football yesterday was, if only for the one game which mattered. Nicklas Bendtner did us no favour as he squandered an early chance to put his team ahead but Sunderland won it right at the death to beat Roberto Mancini's Manchester City.

Don't look now, but Fulham are tied with Wolves for the most yellow cards in the league (37). We had 52 yellow cards all of last season, 46 in 2009-10, and 40 in 2008-09.

Brede Hangeland, Chris Baird, Danny Murphy, Moussa Dembele, and Steve Sidwell all have 4 yellow cards. Mark Schwarzer has one.

Liverpool head to Fulham on Monday knowing a win would equal a club record of away successes.
In all competitions it is six victories in succession away from home - a win at Craven Cottage will equal the club record of seven set between December 1981 - February 1982 and again in January - March 1988.

Arseblog has teamed up with Thomas Cook Sport, official travel partner of Arsenal, to provide two pairs of tickets for this Saturday's game against Fulham.

To be in with a chance of winning, simply answer the following question:

Which current Fulham midfielder started his football career at Arsenal?

By Alan Duffy

Wigan Athletic 0-2 Fulham Premier League October 2011

It's now eight league defeats in a row for Wigan Athletic after Roberto Martinez' side went down 2-0 at home to Fulham.

Despite dominating for large periods of the game, the home side couldn't find a way past Fulham 'keeper Mark Schwarzer, with striker Hugo Rodallega continuing his worrying goul drought.

Chelsea vs Fulham 2011 Carling Cup Highlights Penalties 4-3 Video is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter

Chelsea vs Fulham 2011 Carling Cup Highlights Penalties 4-3 Video is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter Chelsea vs Fulham 2011 Score and result:- Chelsea vs Fulham 0-0 ( Chelsea win 4-3 on penalties) Carling Cup- 21 September, 2011- Stamford Bridge, London- 19.

The signing of Ruiz gives us an extraoardinary array of attacking talent. It means we can field a combination of Zamora, Duff, Dempsey, Dembele and Ruiz, which you'd hope would suffice for our needs. They can't all play, but even if we see three or four of them, their attacking instincts need to be covered by someone to defend.

Yikes. A horror show from Fulham, the sort of performance that really causes fans to question the team's direction, second league game of the season or otherwise. Wolves are a handy side, of course, and were at home, but we'd expect to have given them more of a game. We'd expect to not play so carelessly, so.

With distance comes perspective, and from the very back of the Putney End the view was... well what was it? Despite my best efforts the game entirely passed me by. There they were, 22 men in white and sky blue, back and forth, up and down, then we all went home after an hour and a half of watching them run about.

The new 2011/12 Premier League season is finally here! It's the battle of the new managers at Craven Cottage today, although Martin Jol does have several competitive games under his belt in the Europa League.

Here are the confirmed line-ups for both sides:

Fulham Aston Villa 1 Mark Schwarzer 1 Shay Given 18 Aaron Hughes 2 Luke Young 14 Philippe Senderos 6 James Collins 5 Brede Hangeland 5 Richard Dunne 7 John Arne Riise 3 Stephen Warnock 16 Damien Duff 10 Charles N'Zogbia 20 Dickson Etuhu 16 Fabian Delph 13 Danny Murphy 19 Stiliyan Petrov 23 Clint Dempsey 18 Emile Heskey 8 Andrew Johnson 11 Gabriel Agbonlahor 25 Bobby Zamora 9 Darren Bent Subs Subs 38 Neil Etheridge 22 Brad Guzan 2 Stephen Kelly 21 Ciaran Clark 6 Chris Baird 7 Stephen Ireland 28 Matthew Briggs 17 Jean II Makoun 4 Steve Sidwell 12 Marc Albrighton 10 Pajtim Kasami 25 Barry Bannan 30 Moussa Dembele 14 Nathan Delfouneso Probable Formation: Castrol Football Prediction Today's other Premier League fixtures:

• Blackburn vs Wolves
• Liverpool vs Sunderland
• QPR vs Bolton
• Wigan vs Norwich
• Newcastle vs Arsenal (1730)

New first team squad numbers are out.

The curse of the 'proper' numbers continues, as John Arne Riise vacates the number seven shirt recently not worn by Seol, Andranik, and... who had it last year (ed. Sidwell)? In any case, such a prestigious number needs an equally prestigious owner, and Fulham simply haven't come up with one.

Two of the three Blues Brothers meet at Ibrox in what no doubt will be an excellent, festive way to close the preseason. I'm looking forward to this one.

I've always liked Rangers. Great club. For us to complete our preseason schedule in Glasgow, then, is a welcome sight.

Two of the three Blues Brothers meet at Ibrox in what no doubt will be an excellent, festive way to close the preseason. I'm looking forward to this one.

I've always liked Rangers. Great club. For us to complete our preseason schedule in Glasgow, then, is a welcome sight.

Admit it: Mick McCarthy is awesome.

Lovely little interview with Mick via The Guardian below in which he waxes on the ills of Twitter. A cautionary tale of Twitter and social media in the modern and webcams, Elano battlefield that is football, really, but mostly it's just nice to hear someone call out 'cocks' and 'twits' and 'numpties' for what they really are.

Aston Villa are taking 24 players to Hong Kong to compete in the Barclays Asia Trophy and the travelling party are en route right now. As the strength and depth of the squad is a hot topic at the moment, I thought it might be interesting to compare this pre-season tournament squad with the squads from the last couple of seasons.

There was an interesting comment on Twitter today from Tor-Kristian Karlsen, a football scout. Karlsen noted that while Premiership clubs do have an overview for the world's footballers, most are, I quote:

Tor-Kristian Karlsen
karlsentk Tor-Kristian Karlsen
many people (justifiably) puzzled that few premier league clubs were seriously in for arturo vidal (no idea if arsenal interest was genuine)

personally i think the reason is lack of contacts and connections.

Stevenage 1-0 Fulham | Shroot 80
Pre-Season Friendly | Broadhall Way | 786

Pre-season is well underway now and Boro secured their second successive victory with a 1-0 win over a Fulham XI this afternoon. A late strike from trialist Robin Shroot was enough to give Graham Westley's side the win after a solid performance in the Sunday showers.

I've covered the Premier League 25-man rules several times since it first cropped up so I won't dwell on the details in this post. If you recall, last summer we named 22 players within our maximum of 25 players 21 years old or over on January 1st 2010 without any problems with the quota of "home grown" players.

With absolutely no sparkle in their team, senior key players on the verge of retirement and money problems looming ever closer, this season was the last hurrah for one of the biggest forces in English football over the past few years.

Unfortunately for them, Chelsea's last season as a genuine, title-winning force has ended with no trophies, a star striker wanting out and a top-class manager in the dole queue.

In the latest WSC magazine there's an article suggesting that, for most fans after they get to about 30, all the great goals have already been scored, all the great albums have already been made, and from there it's a case of comparing things unfavourably with when you were younger.

I can see this to a point, and it was with great delight that I was reading about Howard Kendall's mid-80s Everton side this morning.

Synchronized ballet dancing proves to be a much more entertaining affair than what happened on the pitch

Well, at least it wasn't another defeat. I can't remember the last time we lost 3 on the trot. Thankfully, it didn't happen yesterday. This wasn't the best of games in truth and the commentators were right in suggesting that the game had a end of season feel to it, a friendly, if you like.

The last day of Premier League didn't provide any more title challenging scarce like last season, but there's still something interesting to play for in the European Zone as Manchester City and Arsenal battling for the direct Champions League ticket, while Liverpool battled out with Tottenham Hotspurs for an Europa League spot.

Timeline of the final day of the Premier League season on Sunday (all times local): 4.00pm (1500GMT) At kickoff time Blackpool and Wigan Athletic filled the remaining two relegation places alongside doomed West Ham United. Blackpool, Wigan and Birmingham City were all on 39 points and with only two goals difference between them.

" I'm here and you're there and we're not together. Backs to the wall r us."

The signs of retreat were everywhere. From Cesc Fabregas preferring to spend his day in Barcelona at the Spanish Grand Prix to Arsene Wenger cheerleading Man Utd's Champions League dream. But it was on the pitch once again to remind us where it had all unraveled.

Fulham vs Arsenal 2011 22 May 2011- Premier League- 16.00 UK kick off- Fulham at home. Final score:- Fulham vs Arsenal 2-2 ( Sidwell, Zamora/ Robin Van Persie, Theo Walcott) Fulham and Arsenal draw 2-2 on the final day of fixtures in the Premier League. Fulham end the game with ten men following the dismissal [.

These good people needs a good season end send off from Arsenal

Finally, we've come to the last match of the season. I'm sure everyone of us would still want to be involve until next weekend, which would mean we qualified for the Champions League final, but I'm not quite sure we would've deserve that spot.

These good people needs a good season end send off from Arsenal

Finally, we've come to the last match of the season. I'm sure everyone of us would still want to be involve until next weekend, which would mean we qualified for the Champions League final, but I'm not quite sure we would've deserve that spot.

By Kirsten Schlewitz / Senior West Coast Beer and Aston Villa Correspondent
It all comes down to this weekend: Survival Sunday in the Premier League. With the title already in Manchester United's hands, there are only a few more questions to be answered:
Who Takes Third Place and the Automatic Champions League Qualification?

7 goals in 3 matches ain't bad at all... There can't have been many people predicting an exciting clash last night at Craven Cottage and if anyone had a punt on 5-2 then I'll eat my hat! In a game which saw Maxi score his second hat trick in three games, Kuyt score his fifth goal in as many games and Suarez sprinkle magic from the defence all the way into the Fulham net, the travelling fans were

Liverpool may be about to be knocked off their perch by Manchester United, but they showed at Craven Cottage they might just mount a serious challenge for a 19th league title of their own next season by destroying Fulham.
The Reds made it 13 goals in their last three games and Maxi Rodriguez completed his second hat-trick over the same period, with Dirk Kuyt making it 12 goals in his last 13 matches for club and country and Luis Suarez wrapping up the rout.

Kenny Dalglish hailed a Liverpool masterclass after they thumped Fulham 5-2 at Craven Cottage.
The Reds were rampant as a Maxi Rodriguez hat-trick set them on course for a fourth win in five games, which took them above Tottenham into fifth place.
The visitors charged into a 3-0 lead inside 16 minutes, with Maxi scoring after just 32 seconds and the Argentinian midfielder again in the seventh minute.

Mark Hughes was at a loss to explain Fulham's performance following Monday night's 5-2 defeat at home to Liverpool.
The Cottagers have been in fine form over the past couple of months to consolidate a position in mid-table and Hughes was expecting another positive display against Kenny Dalglish's Reds.