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.
I thought that was very nawty of Mr Jol to instruct his team to kick us off the park.He thought they could intimidate us , well done to the lads for not getting sucked in by that and well done to PNB for showing the stiff upper lip and soldiering on until taken off, most pansy like professionals would have been stretcherd off.
He is a great example to the rest as to what is required.Proud to have him wearing the shirt. Im glad Jol has gone. :daumen:
We conceded 13 fouls to their 6.
It not often that you see us leading the way so convincingly with fouls, but it was a mark of how desperate we were, as well as evidence that we might just have what it takes to win ugly.
i thought we were a class apart, they did try to (sidwell anyway) intimidate us but we were too good for them the pub team that ffc are..thought we did ok, suggest someone breaks sidwell’s leg next time we face him…;), how sad that would be for him..
totally agree
totally agree
and crouch was good for us at times but what a great off-load by HR…kerching…
HR or DL?
Just happy that the gormless twat will never wear our shirt again.
So much for the myth that the Europa Cup would be a fatigue factor in the following league games. Seems that it boosted Fulham to have a midweek game and kept them sharp.Spurs were obviously still on the sofas watching the Rubin Kazan match. 90 minutes of football a week is hardly an exhausting exercize for these highly tuned and fit footballers. IF these guys can’t play the odd midweek game as well as the EPL games there is an obvious shortfall in their stamina and resilience. This said, especially when you constantly hear, said player when interviewed state ” I want to play every game”…..
” I want to play every game”…..
You’ve nailed it. The bulk of them only want to play the when it may advance them personally. Shop windows and show ponies…
Livermore’s performance – be intentional or not – smacked of ‘I’ve made it’ and I wonder if when he played it back (yeah right) he feels he was trying as hard as he was before he broke into the first eleven?
You’re right about Livermore. He may think he’s Glen Hoddle but his distribution is generally poor. There may be a decent player somewhere there but he hasn’t discovered him yet.
Must work harder
It wasn’t that long ago, that Danny Rose was telling us how he deserved to be in the team, and then made a crap appearance as sub.
Kolo Toure had weight problems playing in the meanest defence so if our lads are on the couch watching we are all fat bastards. Or cuckoo Davspurs is right top up tempo is real.
@ Crespur
I can remember seasons when being in Europe and having good cup runs meant 70+ games, and they still played internationals as well.
And I think the current crop of pros are a lot fitter than those players ever were. If you ever notice the stats from UEFA when a player is being subbed, you will see that most of them have covered about 6-7 miles in 90 mins. That’s about the equivalent of military quick march, and it’s not unknown for soldiers to do three times that amount for several days at a time.
Put it into perspective a top player playing two games a week, covers about 15 miles not including training. Tat’s about the same as most fun joggers. I know there is more to it than jogging, but the running part accounts for most of the fitness demands.
Anyone else noticed that we’ve dropped just 2 points in 8 games?
Gold
Always believe in your soul
You`ve got the power to know
You`re indestructable ….. etc
:daumen:
And 6 of our 10 matches have been away, plus 5 of the 10 were against teams in the top 7. Lies, damned lies and statistics and all that but it’s still a very strong position with nearly a third of the season gone.
Yes the “gloom and doom merchants” must be crapping themselves wondering how we are going to get another 18 points to avoid the drop.
Wasn’t that long ago, that we were regularly waiting until April to be sure we could not be relegated. Now it’s “which Euro Comp will we be in next year”? Now if we qualify for the EL, people compare it to playing in the Championship, instead of accepting that 5th in the strongest league in Europe is a big achievement in relation to our resources.
If anybody wants to dispute the strength of the PL or what we have achieved, 6 of the top 15 places in http://www.euroclubindex.com/asp/Ranking.asp are occupied by PL clubs. If you look at Statto.com, we are currently ranked 9th in Europe. On Euroclub, we are ranked tenth. Every club above us have bigger stadiums and consequently, bigger chequebooks too.
We may not be a big club physically, but we are up there playing with the big clubs purely on merit.
I know we can play a lot better than we did on Sunday, but during the meantime, I am grateful for the three points, and will no doubt remember them when we have 38 attempts on an opponents goal, to their one. and lose 1-0.
got games against ordinary teams now we must beat the crap that is our weakness
The League Table
Lost two points? No wonder we are struggling. :whistle: