FFC v. Bournemouth, Friday, March 6

Ain't gonna lie...I hate it when we have the Friday game. It's a coin flip whether or not I'll be able to listen to GJ, let alone exchange virtual pleasantries with many of you fine people. That aside, and despite the disappointing result at Watford, I feel we're MAYBE turning the corner again, although in a wider arc (kind like a semi). I've finally thrown in the towel on any miracle run up the table to a playoff spot, so at this point I'd just like to see the kind of effort we put in against Derby and people playing up to their talent level. I"d also like to see Kit take more risks with lineups and players we haven't heard or seen much from lately. That doesn't seem to be his tendency so far, but he's still new enough at this level for me to cut him some slack in this area. To be fair, some of them have been hurt. That's been at least one contributing factor to our decline since he was promoted from caretaker.
Bournemouth are 4th. We are 20th. But this is the Championship. And we just beat the first place team at home. 3-1, good guys.

 

I say we return to our form from earlier in the season when we balanced out wins, losses, and draws. The match ends at 1-1 to make us 1-1-1 for the week.

 

Micah took the words right out of my mouth. Both sides have struggled for goals in their last 5 matches. We have been a little better at home in our last 5, so I won't be surprised if we nick it 2-1, but I think a 1-1 draw is on the cards.

I'm hoping to see this online & make a rare chat room appearance.

 

According to Kit's Bournemouth preview, Alan Curbishley has joined his backroom staff. He emphasizes the benefits of the experience Curbs brings & that the current staff lacked.

http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2015/march/05/kits-bournemouth-preview

 

This is a funny quote from the Team News article on the offal:
"Tim Hoogland has been on the bench for the last three matches, and came on for Parker against Derby County on Saturday, while Fernando Amorebieta took his place amongst the substitutes at Vicarage Road.

The defensive pair have built up their match fitness with the Under-21s, and when asked how far away they are from starting a game for the First Team, Symons replied: “Very, very close, both of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if maybe one, or even both of them did start tomorrow night.”"

Symons states that he wouldn't be surprised if they were in the starting line up. How often is a manager surprised by his own line up?

 

Hoogland! Amorebieta!

Lineup:
Marcus Bettinelli
Tim Hoogland, Shaun Hutchinson, Nikolay Bodurov, Fernando Amorebieta
Scott Parker, Ryan Tunnicliffe, Sean Kavanagh, Bryan Ruiz
Hugo Rodallega, Ross McCormack

Four changes to the starting lineup. Big moves for Kit (average for Magath) I wonder if he was surprised to see Hoogland and Amorebieta start

Substitutes

• Gabor Kiraly
• Konstantinos Stafylidis
• Kay Voser
• Dan Burn
• Seko Fofana
• Matt Smith
• Cauley Woodrow

COYW!

 

That's OK Don. I agree, but THIS is the closest to the lineup we had when we were most successful this season. I'll take it.

 

Things looked really good - until the match started! Ugh. I've rarely stopped listening midway through a match, but I couldn't take anymore after the red card and goal #4. This felt Magathish.

 

I had every intention of watching online and joining the Chat Room and then my router went belly up this morning. I just got home, got reconnected and see my router did me a huge favor. Thank you NetGear.

 

We've hit a new low. When I saw the lineup, I had high hopes that THIS would be the beginning of the turnaround in our club's fortunes. Instead, it just proves how bad we are. Back to the drawing board for EVERYONE, including Mr. Khan.

 

And I just saw this. Oh, the irony.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/mar/05/kit-symons-fulham-championship-premier-league

 

Remember when we joked the last few seasons about improving or we'd be stuck playing Bournemouth and Brighton & Hove?? No laughing matter now as our beloved club was embarrassed today. It's gotten so bad that a 21st place in the 2nd division would be acceptable. What's next? Away trips next season to Port Vale and Fleetwood Town???

 

I've gotten to the place where I am not sure of how many fingers should be pointed at whoever is responsible for this mess.

 

You and I combined don't have enough fingers, Barry. It's everybody's fault. The question is, who's going to fix it? It starts at the top and, given his track record with the Jaguars, I'm still not sure Mr. Khan is the answer. That uncertainty becomes more sure after efforts like this one. Whatever happens, one thing's obvious to me. Something needs to be done about our defense. It's been deteriorating since at least the beginning of last season (probably before then, even), and has gotten worse and worse and worse. The problem is, there may not be much we can do until the summer, and by then, we may be in League One. Either way, however, defending HAS to be a priority, STARTING NOW.

 

I can't speak for anyone else, but I wasn't joking.

And I'm still not. This club has become an embarrassing mess. In the link Jump posted, it called the side a mish mash collection of players picked by 3 different managers with no clear direction. I'd say that's spot on. Hopefully the appointment of Rigg gives us a direction when it comes to player acquisition. That'll mean working well with the manager, which then makes having the right man in charge important. My faith in Kit is shaken, but maybe with Curbs on board he can settle that a little. These last 10 matches should be an audition for everyone b/c imo, we need a pretty massive clean out. Particularly among the veteran players.

 

It'll likely have to wait until summer. We got spoiled with the Thames Barrier, but look at how they were assembled. Roy took a very tactically astute 29 yo in Hughes & paired him with a physically imposing & experienced 27 yo in Hangeland. Behind them you had a good gk with a wealth of experience barking instruction to them in Schwarzer. And they all played together, every match, with almost no mixing and matching. That level of skill and experience is going to make forming a cohesive partnership a quicker process.

Compare to the present. Bodurov is 28, has good experience and has started 40 matches. His most consistent partner (in appearances) is Hutchinson with 26 starts. Hutchinson is only 24 but was part of a very good Motherwell defense. However, imo, the Scottish Middle School League doesn't compare to the top 2 levels in England, Celtic excepted. So maybe he's struggled with the step up? Backing them up is a very promising, but very green 22 yo in Bettinelli who has almost no experience to speak of. Betts has made 35 appearances. So you have a young group mostly, completely inexperienced at this level and likely struggling to communicate as well as they should as a result. Only time and continuity will fix that and it'll take considerably longer than it took H&H with Mark.

While I wouldn't say H&H received the best fullback support, it was better than what Bod & Hutch are getting and the pairings were more consistent. This year, the fb pairings have been a revolving door.

More importantly though, H&H received far better protection from their midfield. Duff & Davies were relentless in tracking back. Dempsey caught a bit of stick for his defensive effort, but he won a good number of balls back and was better than he was given credit. We had a tactical savant in Murph marshaling the middle with a destroyer (albeit reckless) in Etuhu. All of them were experienced, veteran players. Compare that to today. We don't even have proper wingers, so the fullbacks are on an island almost all of the time. For all his hustle and bustle, Parker is not a good defender and doesn't get back well. I haven't seen enough of LVC to comment but while it sounds like he has plenty of promise and has played well, he's not a true cdm. That's fine, but when paired with Parker it leaves a void.

And then you have Roy's rigid, defense first philosophy vs Kit's more jumbled approach.

Look, I get that comparing to the Thames Barrier isn't fair b/c they would have walked this league. My point was to compare the experience and importance of forming partnerships and to show just how massively far apart we are from that standard. It'll take time, consistency and filling the glaring holes in the side, whether that's through personnel, approach, or both.

Given the makeup of this team, there's a part of me that thinks relegation wouldn't be the end of the world. We had hoped in stepping down to the Championship that we could start building around the youth and forming a strong, young nucleus for our resurgence. However Kit clearly doesn't think they're ready. Surely the youth could handle the League 1 level and we could start building around what we have there.

If we stay up we'll need a brilliant window in the summer and for the kids to get out on loan and develop quickly. Otherwise we need to shelve any hopes of bouncing back up quickly.

When we were relegated, I'd said 3-5 years minimum to get back up & I stand by that. That's why I think McCormack was an incredibly stupid investment, as was not selling Ruiz. I feel like a broken record, but once again, hopefully someone affiliated with this club can make an honest assessment of where we are and start building accordingly. How long can they continue to overestimate our lot?