Toby on a 'strange' week

Toby Alderweireld admits it’s been enjoyable to return to an uninterrupted week of training this week.

In a rare break from competitive action, we have not faced a midweek game for the first time since the last international break in mid-November. 

The fleeting interlude this week has given the players a chance to recharge their batteries after battling through a tough schedule of 15 games in just 51 days.

Defender Toby feels the brief respite and having time to focus purely on training this week has been good for the group.

“It’s been strange,” our number four admitted. “I think it was like a game every three days for us, so this is the first time in a long while that we haven’t had a midweek game. It’s been a good little rest.

“We had two days off and then we had a moment to train because before, if you’re only playing games, you can only play a game, recover, play a game, recover, so we've had some time to train.”

Up next for us is Sunday’s trip to Fulham where we will be hoping to return to winning ways in the Premier League following our 1-0 defeat against Manchester United last time out.

After going behind just before half-time to Marcus Rashford’s strike, we had 11 shots on target in the second half but we just couldn’t find that elusive equaliser with David de Gea in outstanding form for the visitors.

While it was a frustrating defeat at Wembley, Belgian international Toby believes we can take encouragement from that second-half performance into this weekend’s clash at Craven Cottage.

“It’s a London derby again on Sunday, there are a lot of them in the Premier League,” he added.

“Fulham is a difficult place to go but I think we can be confident, even after our defeat at the weekend, as I think we played one of our best second halves this season.”