You heard it here first: the rumour mill churns

COME on, let’s drag out the old cliche now, upfront: “You can only beat what’s put in front of you.”

Fulham were utterly useless on Sunday, bereft of the only players who’ve ever caused us problems: we bought one — Saha — and the other, Malbranque, is in the wilderness, having dared to commit the apparently cardinal sin of refusing sale to some other Premier League no-hoper.

Invited to plunder, we accepted gracefully, and the battering we gave the opposition in that first 20 minutes conjured up lovely memories of the match against Southampton in 1994-5, when a young Ryan Giggs ran riot straight from the traps to scintillating effect.