Fulham USA: US Supporters club of Fulham FC

I have been wondering for a while now if I have allowed the prejudices of others regarding Fulham’s play to cloud my own judgment on the state of football currently on display at the Cottage. If you do any amount of reading regarding the state of Fulham Football Club you will most certainly see a distinct divide about what is happening in the here and now down by the River Thames. As an American Fulham fan I want nothing more than to sit back on a Saturday morning and watch the Whites roll to an impressive win over the days opposition but I have no preconceived notion that I will not come away on as many Saturdays ruing a missed shot or a breakdown in the defense as I will celebrating a superb winner or stunning game preserving save by the keeper. I am well aware that Fulham are not among the entitled and I do try to keep my expectations firmly grounded in hoping for the squad to put in a good shift, for them to cause their fair share of trouble to the opposition’s defense and for...

Both Martin Jol and Steve Clarke described today’s match as “must win.” So, naturally, it wound up a draw. Both sides worked hard and, although Fulham were certainly the more unlucky in front of goal, a draw was a fair result over the run of play.

Fulham fielded a side filled with potential scapegoats: Richardson, Ruiz, Berbatov, Sidwell, and Arch Scapegoat Senderos. West Brom decided to keep their main danger man on the sub’s bench and so the answer to the big question in the run-up to the match, “Who will have to mark Sinclair?” turned out to be “Clarke” – for at least the first hour or so. Victor Anichebe did feature and, for the first half, engaged in a very entertaining duel with Philippe Senderos.

Last season, Steve Clarke was the only manager in the Premier League who didn’t know that the way to stifle Fulham was to pressure our slow attackers and stop us from turning. As a result, we got six points from them that a better organized Albion might have kept for themselves....

If you read the various blogs and forums across the Fulham universe, you'll see "this is the strongest Fulham side we've had" quite often. Much like in politics, sometimes a statement is made over and over enough that it begins to take root as fact. I submit that's the case here. On paper, yeah, it probably should be. However, upon closer inspection, when you factor in age and production, maybe it really isn't. While the differences in approach to offense muddies the comparison, I submit that Mark Hughes' 2010-2011 side was the better one. Lets take a look at it position by position.

GK - Schwarzer (Stockdale) v Stekelenburg (Stockdale) - Despite his distribution issues, I give the edge to Schwarzer. Mark posted 11 clean sheets and 94 saves in 31 starts. Due to injury, we only have one game from Stekelenburg to draw an opinion. His highest clean sheet total at Roma was 7 in 29 starts. ADV - Schwarzer

RB - Paintsil/Baird v Riether - Baird had 25 starts in various...