We Need to Talk About… Fulham in the Carabao Cup

 

There is a distinct, lingering madness that comes with supporting West Ham. On Tuesday night, we face Fulham in the Carabao Cup, and I find myself hopelessly, hopelessly divided.

The romantic in me, that starry-eyed fool who still believes football can occasionally throw a piano out of a window just because it feels like it, is already dreaming.

Imagine it.

Lifting a domestic trophy while operating out of the second tier of English football.

It would be completely absurd, utterly glorious and, frankly, fundamentally West Ham. A silverware-scented middle finger to the established order, delivered from the engine room of the EFL.

Then the logical side of my brain clears its throat.

Let us be brutally honest for a moment: we are not winning the Carabao Cup.

The Championship is an absolute grind. The fixtures keep coming, the legs keep getting heavier and there is barely enough time to recover from one match before another one is standing at the door asking for the keys.

The last thing we need is for someone to pull a hamstring on a Tuesday night because we decided that a cup run was worth going toe-to-toe with Premier League opposition.

Our mission this season is promotion. Non-negotiable.

As strangely enjoyable as this Championship detour has been, we need to get ourselves back into the corruption, chaos and bloated spectacle of the Premier League.

There is only one piece of silverware that really matters this season, and that is the Championship trophy.

So play the youngsters. Rest the key players. Give the squad players a chance to remind Nuno that they exist.

And if we happen to knock Fulham out anyway?

Well...

I never said the romantic idiot had completely lost the argument.