As London went Siberian (although not for me; watched at home while looking after the boy) Fulham were much as Fulham are. Yes, we lacked a true number 25, but individual players are always less important than we think they'll be. In truth we looked more or less okay.

Fulham lined up with what was more or less a 4-4-2, Murphy and Sidwell flanked by Duff and Davies, with Dempsey and Ruiz a surprising but skilful front two.

The International break means there's little Fulham news to talk about. England did what they needed to do and qualified for Euro 2012 but the press had a field day over Rooney's sending off. How perfect for the British media that the man most in the spotlight should rise to the bait and give them something to write about.

Manchester United youngsters Phil Jones and Tom Cleverley have been rewarded for their great start to the season with a call-up to the England squad.

Fabio Capello, naming his squad for the Euro 2012 qualifiers against Bulgaria and Wales next month, has decided the level of display shown by the duo in United's great start to the season is worthy of a chance in his senior squad.

[UPDATE! Rich weighted the data according to playing time! See below]

[UPDATE ii- just moved this up as I think it's worth a look and don't want it buried under the Split stuff. Interesting that when we pro-rate age for playing time you've got an almost absurdly consistent line upwards.

Piggybacking off Rich's post from the other day, I've been looking at the average age of our squad over the years. Remember learning mean, median, and mode, along with standard deviation from math class? Well, it's back Fulham style!

We all know that the side is in some (not dire) need of youth, and that our stalwarts aren't just getting older, they're nearing the end of their careers I for one would not be surprised to see Danny Murphy and Damien Duff hang up their boots after this season.

It sounds from here as if our opponents experimented in the second half, when they got the goals. So that's not good is it?

Our team:

Fulham XI: Stockdale; Baird, Halliche, Hughes, Smith; Riise (Marsh-Brown 60), Murphy, Donegan (Harris 82), Frei; Dalla Valle, Trotta (Hoesen 45)

Lineups are in:

Fulham: Starters: Schwarzer, Hangeland, Sidwell, Johnston, Murphy, Senderos, Hughes, Dempsey, Zamora, Greening, Briggs Bench: Stockdale, Salcido, Gera, Etuhu, Gudjohnson, Kakuta, Davies

Arsenal: Starters: Szczesny, Sagna, Djourou, Vermaelen, Gibbs, Diaby, Wilshere, Ramsey, Nasri, Van Persie, Chamakh Bench: Lehmann, Walcott, Denilson, Squillaci, Arshavin, Eboue, Miquel

Last game of the season.

I read on FOF that Schwarzer going away in January cost us, that when he got back we were worse off and that because he wanted to be elsewhere his performances have dipped which is also partly because he's older now.... and so on. I don't believe this, frankly, and if he's declined at all a) it was from a very high starting point and b) I don't know that any of us would really notice it.

Ah, the FA Cup Third Round. Where there's usually more talk about the proposed lineup than the actual game.

When I played FIFA 07 and 08, I would often throw out a silly lineup that would include Lee Cook or Ahmad Ehrlich, and then win 1-0 on a penalty or something like that.

This year, with the 25-man rosters, we can only see more youth than Seol Ki-Hyeon types.