Fulham v Birmingham City

This should be a tight one coming off the break against a club that likely will be vying for a playoff spot come Spring. August was a dream month, so might as well start off the next one right. COYW!!!!

 

11 en la manana o en la noche?

 

I'm afeared we may have lost our edge during the international break, which is always ill timed when your side is in good form. That, plus all the new and, in some cases, late arriving faces means the vibe has changed. Let's just hope it's not too drastic. I have no idea what Birmingham City is like this season, so I guess we'll just see what we'll see and hope for the best. Everybody's supposedly healthy and fit for selection except Fredericks, so some guys are gonna be unhappy. With 7 matches in 21 days, some of them will get a chance.

 

I'm gonna say the momentum is sill there and they keep pace. Birmingham have only had success against Norwich, so I'll take 1-0 good guys.

 

I looked on the beIN Sports Connect Schedule this morning and it shows that the match will be shown, live, online on beIN Sports 3.

 

Our home match against Birmingham last November was when everything went off the rails. The 2-5 beat down was our second big loss that week with a 1-3 loss to Burnley earlier in the week. Goalie Joe Lewis took out a Birmingham player in the box for a PK and Husband got two yellows in one minute to put us down a man for the last 30 minutes. We seemed undisciplined and disorganized so it was Kit Symons last match as Fulham's manager. Despite those two losses, after the game we were mid-table in 12th place. Unfortunately we continued to sink for months highlighted by our position in 21st place, just one point out of relegation, when we drew Birmingham in March.

But this is a new Fulham team, so no reason to look too hard at the past. It is likely that our only returning starter from last year's home loss will be Cairney - compared to 7 likely starters for Birmingham. Birmingham have lost only once in the Championship this season. A home loss to the Wolves where they fell apart in the second half giving up three goals and going down to 10 men from a straight red card.

My guess is that we'll see relatively the same Fulham squad that has given us a great start with a few exceptions, like Chris Martin. This will certainly be the toughest team we've faced since Newcastle but a win will make it hard to consider August just a fluke.

 

Whatever happens, I'm just happy to be looking forward to Fulham match days again.

 

The starting XI:
Button
Odoi, Madl, Kalas, Malone
Johansen, McDonald,
Ayite, Cairney, Aluko
Smith

Subs: Bettinelli, Sigurdsson, Sessegnon, Tunnicliffe, Jozabed, Kebano, Martin

So only one new face starting, and not the one I expected - Johansen instead of Martin. Hopefully Martin comes on in the second half after we get a comfortable lead! COYW!!

 

I'm sorry everyone. Today was all my fault. I had worn my Fulham jersey for every match. I hadn't washed it yet and I noticed it had gotten a bit rank. Over the international break I washed it and I realized too late what that smell was that I washed out.


My apologies. I'm going to mow the lawn in it now to try to get the smell back. It would also be helpful if we didn't shoot ourselves in the foot so much. The only positive thing I can say is that we made almost as many mistakes in this match as last year's 2-5 defeat, but we managed to only lose 0-1 this year. I'll choose to be optimistic and consider it an improvement.

 

Nope MM, MY fault for choosing to join the chat. I'll also forego sex with Annie Savoy when we start winning again. I'll chalk this one up to the "we were due for a clunker" excuse, and hope we hop back up on the winning horse Tuesday night against Burton Albion. It'll be interesting to see what lineup and squad changes Joka makes. I'd be willing to bet we see Scott Parker back, maybe even Ream, Woodrow and Christensen, none of whom were named to the bench. All the new guys named today except Piazon.

 

We play Burton on Tuesday. We don't play Wednesday until November 19.

We do play Bristol City next Wednesday.

 

Highlights have been posted: http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2016/september/11/match-action-birmingham

I think the second penalty was uncalled for. To me it looks like the Birmingham player slipped because he was trying to poke the ball, to because of any body contact from Ayite.

With Nottingham only coming away with a draw this morning, we are still in the top six, but there are 10 teams within three points under us and only Huddersfield has more than three points ahead, so things are still very fluid at this point in the year.

 

After watching only the highlights, it appears we didn't handle their high pitch pressure tactics. Madl and Kalas looked very fragile under attack, and that's worrisome. Hope Joka gets that corrected before Tuesday night.