The importance of the next two games

Two important games coming up now. Two games where we need to reassert ourselves after Saturday's inept display.

It wasn't so much that Fulham were good defensively but we weren't very good going forward. A lot has been said about the decision to play Lucas and his subsequent performance but not a lot has been said about how poor Robbie Keane was.

It's not unfair to say that he hardly touched the ball at all in the second half and when he did, he did nothing with it. Maybe the return of Fernando Torres put him off a bit and he wasn't quite sure what he was meant to be doing having been the main man up front in recent games but if this partnership with the Spaniard is to flourish it needs to do so quickly.

The rest of the league won't wait for it to click and we were lucky in that, by freak, all of the big four failed to score at the weekend. The first time in over 80 years apparently.

Marseille tomorrow should be academic and we should secure our place in the knockout phase of the Champions League. But we've made hard work of so many games this season it just wouldn't be safe to assume this will be the case.

The same can be said of Monday's visit of struggling West Ham. It should be three points and comfortably so but you wouldn't put your house on it particularly after seeing us toil against Fulham, who had the worst away record in the league before the weekend.

All that said we are still in the exact same position we were before that game. But we could have been top and it leaves that lingering feeling that we won't get many opportunities to overtake Chelsea this season, when they do come along we need to take advantage of them particularly against teams like Fulham.

We'll be playing catch up by Monday night with all the other teams having played at the weekend. Three points is a must as is the case tomorrow night.

Putting the Champions League to bed before December can allow us to focus on our ultimate goal this season and ending the long wait.