Fulham USA: US Supporters club of Fulham FC

I suppose it was fate that reinforced our yoyotude relegation, but there were mitigating circumstances -- and I believe it was these circumstances that doomed us from the beginning. Here's some highlights ... lowlights that contributed to our demise.

1. Not finishing second ... Because of the reduced off-season [thanks to operation re-start] we missed several weeks of scouting/signing. By the time we actually won promotion, I'd say about 75% of the players who could have helped us were off the market. Had we not required the playoffs, those two-three weeks of active recruitment could have gleaned us the 2-3 midfielders/strikers we needed. Remember, this was a once in a lifetime weirdness that only really damaged Fulham. Finishing second and avoiding the playoff cone of uncertainty and we're competitive in the market. No COVID and the resulting short off-season, and we're competitive in the market.
2. Olivier Giroud ... Lampard didn't know what to do with him. He wanted to use...

The View From South Texas – how the game is played

I watch a LOT of football – Championship, Bundesliga, Premier League – and I’m learning more about the game all the time. What follows finally kicked in when I watched Borussia Dortmund host Bayern Munich after the season re-start. What I finally realized watching that match, got me looking elsewhere to find similarities – and I found them.

Dortmund had a slight chance of overtaking Bayern before the match was played. Had they taken all three points at home, they’d have been only 1 point behind in second place. Bayern won and the gap expanded to 7 and that was that. Now, you could say that Bayern are the better team – and they are. You could say that Marco Reus’ injury hurt Dortmund – and it certainly did. You might even say that the lost wasn’t a rollover because they held Bayern to only one goal. You’d be right about that. I told myself at the time that had Lewandowski been injured and Reus been healthy, Dortmund might have won...

The first half of Fulham’s 2019-20 season has been the best first half since the 2000-2001 season when Fulham dominated the second tier on its way to a first place finish and automatic promotion. So despite Fulham’s current position outside of the top two feeling a little disappointing, it shouldn’t be forgotten that this has generally been a very good start.

Fulham has six more points at the halfway mark than in 2017-18 when Fulham went on a 23 game streak without a loss in the second half of the season to just miss out on automatic promotion by finally losing in the last game of the season. Fulham has two more points than the 2016-17 season when Fulham took the last playoff spot, five points in front of seventh place Leeds.

Based on that recent history Fulham at least has a good shot at making the playoffs for the third consecutive year in the Championship. You may remember from my posts in the 2017-18 season that typically 75 points is enough to get into the playoffs. Fulham is...