Hello!
All too frequently not nice viewing. I used the word ‘lottery’ in relation to previous outcomes at Craven Cottage and I stand by it. Fulham are not a great footballing side. What they are is a rag bag collective of players that occasionally get them out of a scrape playing on a pitch that reminds me too much of the Library.
The narrow ping pong table of a pitch created a scenario whereby v d Vaart and Modders achieved little and the almost totla absence of anything resembling a centre back on our behalf allowed players like Zamora occasionally look like Lionel Messi.
9.893 Clips from Brad’s performance will be undoubtedly be used in goal keeping classes up and down the land. His reactions were superb but he must be wondering how in his ‘dotage’ he’s having to put such punishing shifts!
4.675 Any chance we can lose the daft complicated feints and just whip a cross in, mate? Not a great performance at either end of the pitch.
6.678 Raging Kaboul in a china shop. Not his finest hour. He exemplified the fiasco. Some sterling hoofs, but these routinely landed at the feet of Fulham players. More thought required next time out, please.
6.789 Decent performance but far from the class he owes himself, let alone us. But then he was too frequently fire fighting single handed.
6.321 If I was pushed to sum him up in one word it would have to be unremarkable. If it was two words, the pretty unremarkable. He’s Tweeting and column writing like a trooper, now let’s see him play like one.
6.456 Cracking little goal, but that was almost the sum total of his contribution. We lacked width. He’s a winger. I don’t think the jury will be out long.
6.210 Another quiet game bar a Boys Own save off the line. He was hemmed in and we desperately needed to – but failed miserably – to do anything to change our shape or personnel to fix that. Poor possession.
7.100 He was overrun. Modric should have been swapped for Sandro at half time to help shore up the gaping hole in the centre of the park, but wasn’t. I’m unconvinced that the brutal assault by the thug Sidwell did much to boost his mood.
6.987 Top quality ball in to force the goal. But aside from that and the glorious pass to Azza he wasn’t 100% there. Poor possession.
5.999 Frustrating game. He just couldn’t get into it. Fulham suffocated him and our shape did little to offer him air.
7.459 I genuinely admired him out there. Pav, Defoe, Crouch etc would have all stay up there waiting for the ball to break. But Ade played selflessly. He knew the ball had to be pulled out of the quagmire and he went in to do his bit. Never a threat, but he played intelligently.
7.890 Got the break, buried it. I stand by my praise of Adebayor. That man is a team player as well as a talented finisher.
Apart from the ManU and ManC games (when we didn’t actually have a midfield), the worst team performance in a while. Harry out?
In seriousness, though, credit to Fulham. Also, while I agree with your grade for Brad, HH, I think the defence deserve a bit more credit. They withstood the onslaught as a unit (the goal we did concede was a bit of a fluke), and the fact that the midfield abjectly failed to keep it’s shape and dictate anything at all was most of the reason we had to soak up so much pressure.
but last week it was the same midfield that played so well against QPR i think Fulham were much more physical then i expected and our midfield got bullied Sandro should have been introduced much sooner and i cant remember who closelined Parker but that was a sure red card and the same player shoved Parker to the floor in the penalty area a definate Pen ref was a joke
spot on harry agree with all
brown noser
3 points in a game that, last season, we would likely hve lost. loets take them and mnove on
Harsh rating for Walker as his run initially set up our opener and he blocked and defended, during the last half hour, as if his life depended on it.
if we had won at home against Wigan, Blackpool, Wolves and West Ham we would have finished 3rd
Oh – and mark Kaboul down for that show of dissent. The last time he did something so stupid, he got sent off. The pressure was on us, Parker had a broken nose (and his performance suffered) and that was the last thing we needed. Not sure why you marked Ekotto down so much. As far as I am concerned, if is simple – the whole team gets 6/10, apart from Freidel: 9/10.
Modders 5 wasn’t in the game got musceled out of it
Adebayor not doing it for me….our only real outlet when VdV had been taken off and gave away posession far too often. Had a part in two goals but looked 2nd best as a striker to Zamora for most of the game, him and Defoe should be in the low 5’s…
Agreed, he barely even challenged for any long ball second half, frustrating.
Zamora pummelled us, is he really the same lightweight player that we had on our books years ago?
did Zamora score, NO and they were the home team just like Pav, crouch, Defoe and Keane last year couldn’t hit an Elephant from 5 yards
Defoe gets 15-20 mins,scores in that time in the last 2 away league games and you still slag him off? Give the man a break.
Not really slagging him off brother, thought he took his chance well, but for the rest of his game time he was largely anonymous…nearer 5.125 rather than the 7.890 given…
I dont think the situation in which he was introduced did much for him to be honest.
I agree, it was very hard for him to get a foothold in the game.
Defoe relies on service. Our midfield had no hold on the game….thus Defoe will struggle to get in the game. Fot that reason it was a strange substitution. I think we are taking our Attacking Style too far. Sandro should have been introduced at that stage, we should have shut up shop. Sandro & Parker is the perfect combo in these situations
DO you think Arry was texting the substitutions through to the bench?
So was the whole team ,what you need to talk about is why are we so unfit or alternately why was Fulham so super fit in a half they should have bean knackered.?
If the midfield does’nt work, how do you expect the attackers to be good?
Equally the defence was under constant pressure because the midfield wasn’t holding the ball up. Modric was having to drop deep and Parker was set upon the moment he got near the ball, but don’t forget that resilience, commitment are just as essential to teamwork and to bringing success. To win playing great football is the aim but winning ugly equals the same three points!
Agreed. Ade didn’t get that much to talk about, and on at least two occasions, he did a great job as a CB.
Might be my imagination, but the pitch looked extremely small, and I was surprised to discover that it was bigger than ours.