Thoughts on Upcoming Season

So, quite a few of us saw Fulham play at least once live or on TV this past week. Some of us saw them twice. What are your thoughts on what the upcoming season holds for Fulham?

After listening to World Soccer Daily, Fox Sports World Report and reading emails, listening to callers, etc, quite a few people have us going down this season. Do you believe this?

What positives can you take from Fulham's trip to America?

 

For all purposes of comparison, we have the same basic team as last season.

Losing Ed in goal gives up maybe 2 game winning goals.. If N Jensen works out, that gets them back

The better fitness regimen, IF the salt mine routine stops now, should account for a few more games.

Provided few injuries, and both Boa and Papa stay, then the team should actually improve.

But look for that gleam in Cookie's eye to start when he thinks:

Volz- Knight- Goma - Jensen
Papa- Liam
CJ/Radz - Steed - Boa
McBride/HH

Ehhh.. no it aint 4-5-1, it's better but dont think he aint thinking about it over the 4-4-2 Esp with the defending problems

Anyway... worst case 14th.. and like a toothache, best case 7th and entertaining.

 

The Offal board is not alone in the realm of pre-season jitters...

I had earlier picked Fulham for 7th, worst case - 10th.

However the provisos were/are:

1. that the mid remains intact and that Cookie doesnt go "deer in the headlights" on us and start masking stupid decisions on roster and tactics... I had assumed he would take up where he left off last season.

2. That Drobny was capable of proving #1 value
- Crossley, then, secure in the knowledge that he's a solid #2.. could provide the occasional blinder should Drobny come up with the odd injury because he has nothing to lose and wont have the competition weighing on him.. well, guess what!
The sitch is EXACTLY what I've seen on the Crew this year! When Busch went down, the backup, Matt Jordan, suddenly had a 'relapse' of his niggling injury that had kept him out of practice almost the whole preseason.

3. That the team had a winning mindset. This should have been the case following the end of season since the core of the team remains intact.

While the US matches didnt help any, they werent against Prem teams and the players know exactly what they faced. If Cookie has any sense of leadership, he will remind them of that and also point to the other results regarding the Euro/MLS matches.

That's why Panionios is critical... this is where the team regains their legs and confidence.

The fact that there's something obviously afoot on the business end at Fulham aint gonna help matters at all.

 

I'm a season ticket holder.

So it better be good.

 

what we need to do is shock the opposition like before. we played 4-1-4-1, with the 4 mids pressing on and flooding the opposition and the holding midfielder mopping up in front of our back line. nowadays we seem to just trundle around; there's no work ethic. passing the ball is fine and dandy but we need to get it up towards the damn goal.

i see us finishing in the bottom half, although i'd love a UEFA cup place.

we need big Al to start giving cookie some cash; remember how he said he wanted Fulham to be 'the Manchester United of the south'? well we got pipped to it by Chelsea.