I went to Craven Cottage just once. It was on the 8th of August this year, and I was with one of my Italian friends, Luca, a keen Roma supporter. He was really interested in London football stadiums and I brought him to the Highbury site, Craven Cottage (and Stamford Bridge, too, but just from the outside!), because I knew he would have liked those places, which are completely different from the stadium we have here in Italy. Well, even though Luca enjoyed the trip and the lunch in a Fulham pub, saving my life in the process as I was getting myself killed by cars, due to my half-drunkenness, I really felt a bit of discomfort when going there, as an Arsenal fan.

We’ve not been performing well at Fulham for years now, apart from rare stunning wins. I still remember Brede Hangeland’s goal last year: I was with one of my friends and he was ridiculously in love with this Norwegian giant I didn’t really know much about. I don’t know why but it seems to me that away games at Fulham happen to be always in the worst period of the season, every single season.

Fulham are not a top four team of course, they do not play stunning football, they do not have exceptional features or qualities, but when they play against Arsenal at Craven Cottage, they seem possessed by some evil force. The environment, too, doesn’t seem so intimidating to me, but our players for one reason or another just simply fail to deliver against the Cottagers. This period of the season is not maybe our worst ever; of course we’ve lost twice in Manchester, nearly lost to Liege, and thumped sloppy tired Wigan Athletic.

This does not mean that it’s all over. Last Saturday at the Grove, our mighty captain Cesc Fabregas looked bored, as if having a day off. And he scored too! It was the triumph of our now cult hero Emmanuel Ebouè. He might be a nice guy of course, but I wouldn’t play him either as a winger or as a midfielder: he simply doesn’t know what to do with the ball at his feet. Everybody is now so keen to deify Thomas Vermaelen; this guy is really what we needed and if we had to buy just one guy, maybe Arsene made the right choice (leaving no regrets about Hangeland not coming to Arsenal), but please, we’ve got to make a global evaluation of the guy.

He’s top class, of course, he’s still young, he’s not that tall but jumps higher than others and it seems to me he’s the perfect partner for William Gallas. But. There’s a but, of course. Will he be able to cope even in tough matches and maintain this status (not the scoring of course) for the whole season ahead? I’m very confident but we can’t express a full judgment now. I’m stressing this Fulham match so much because I firmly believe that titles are not usually won by winning the ‘top four’ matches. You win the title if you’re able to get back from Villa, Ewood Park, Goodison Park and Craven Cottage with the three points, just to mention a few. Last year we won at Stamford Bridge and beat Man U at the Grove, but that was not enough as we left points behind at Fulham, Villa, etc.

Every match will have to be considered as an FA Cup or Champions League final, if Arsenal want to bring some silverware home this season. Destroying a self-destructive team like Wigan 4-0 means nothing if the players do not play with passion. Don’t get fooled by the Wigan match, tomorrow afternoon we’ll see what we are capable of. And by saying this I’m not being pessimistic at all, I think we have very good chances of getting away with a win. But actually it’s a general feeling that the team sometimes doesn’t seem to be ‘into’ the match, just passing the ball around senselessly.

I can understand Fabregas’ state of mind, we’ve got the same age, and he wants to win, and he knows that this is very unlikely to happen at Arsenal. And even though I can already see him in a Barça shirt smiling for the press next June, he has to understand that he’s the Arsenal CAPTAIN, and this does not simply mean he’s the only one entitled to wear a black and white armband when playing. This team has to be aggressive, play for the fans, for the club they represent; and I expect that tomorrow Fulham will surely play aggressively, for the fans and their club.

The difference tomorrow, from a quality point of view, could be immense, but sometimes quality is simply not enough, teams need motivation, too.

So it’s up to us to choose whether to drink sweet or sour tea tomorrow at Craven Cottage.