Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Championship ...

Mark Warburton is in at Nottingham Forest and Gary Rowett is the new man at Derby County.

http://mobile.nottinghamforest.co.u...orest-new-manager-mark-warburton-3624281.aspx

http://mobile.dcfc.co.uk/news/artic...y-appoint-gary-rowett-as-manager-3624101.aspx

We're done with Forest this season, but we're at Derby April 4th.

 

Aside from Brentford beating Leeds it was a bad day all around. However, nothing to do but dust ourselves off and press on. Saturday's fixtures look better w/Fulham hosting Ipswich, PNE traveling to Leeds, Wednesday hosting Newcastle (Come on Geordies!!), and Norwich home to Reading.

 

Reading is team Cybill. When you think they'll fall out of the Top 6 they'll rack up a few wins. Then a match like Norwich (our next opponent) when they lose 7-1 pops up and you can't figure out how in the hell they're in a playoff spot.

 

That match put Reading's goal differential at -1. We have +20. Sigh.

 

One eye on our score the other on the scoreboard:

The teams in front of us:

Sheffield Wednesday host Cardiff City: ...Ugh
Newcastle host Leeds: The Geordies lost to Wed. last time out, hopefully will beat Leeds.
Aston Villa host Reading: This is on Saturday, here is to the Villains helping and the bad Reading showing. Also liking Villa will come to the Cottage with 1 days less rest.

Over our Shoulders:

Brentford hosts Derby: Fingers crossed the Bees can halt Derby's momentum.

 

A mixed bag of results:
• As expected Wednesday beat Cardiff at home 1-0, but not before Cardiff teased and gave us some hope before giving up a goal in the 84th minute.
• Leeds scored an equalizer in the 95th minute at Newcastle...ARG!!!
• Derby smashed and their hopes all but dashed at Brentford 4-0
• Huddersfield have been scuttling, but a late winner v Preston North End keeps them above the 4th-7th fray (barely), and puts the final nail in PNE's coffin.
• LETS GO VILLA!!!! beat Reading. EDIT: Thanks for nothin' Villains!!

 

Tough set of matches for Fulham fans:

The Good:
Reading at Nottingham Forest: Forest took a gamble on Ross and lost badly, but with their backs against the wall and Reading all but in the playoffs Forest could get a result.

The Bad:
Leeds at Burton: Don't count on Burton helping us. They got a huge win last week that pushed them 4 points clear, which means a likely let down. Just can't see Leeds turning in second bad performance in a row.

The Ugly:
Sheffield Wednesday host Derby: No motivation for the Rams, and in their last away match were destroyed by Brentford. Wednesday wins and gets help they could seal up a playoff spot before that last match against us.

 

Interesting, how will that affect our match up with Wednesday on the final day, if we have all to play for and they might already booked their spot?

 

They play to knock us out on their turf rather than having to possibly beat us later on home/away aggregate. At this point Leeds is certainly the weaker team and any of the other three teams in the playoffs would prefer to see them rather than us. Since teams that set up camp and just lump it forward seem to have success against us, I'd expect to see that conservative style of play with them trying to let Rhodes or Forestieri work some magic.

On an entirely different subject, I'm not sure how, but 40 minutes into Brighton's match with Norwich today, Stockdale has scored two own goals to put B&H down 0-2. Yikes.

 

Stockdale's OGs were just lucky bounces for Norwich - both coming off the woodwork and then off of his back. Can't really blame him for what happened.

 

Burton Albion....WE LOVE YOU!!!!

 

So much for form coming into the playoffs; Huddersfield has punched their ticket to The Show by beating Reading in penalties after it went scoreless for 120 minutes. Congrats to their manager and former usmnt player David Wagner.

 

Pretty sure the person in charge of this could be looking for a new gig. And who changes their crest mid-season?

http://www.espn.com/soccer/blog/the...ge-stunt-backfires-after-design-mocked-online

 

So they are going back to the drawing board, literally:

http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/42811556

This episode brought up two thoughts for me. First, was anyone here following Fulham when they released the current crest back in 2001? I have to imagine it wasn't well received at the time, but I don't know. Second, this reminded me of an ordeal years ago with Pennsylvania's motto. A new administration came in and they spent a lot of time and money coming up with a new motto - something like "Memories Last a Lifetime". When it was released it was quickly discovered that it was already in use as a motto for a PA adult book store.

 

It looked like some player covering his own team's crest .

I remember seeing the Fulham crest discussed on FoF years ago, and no surprise long time supporters preferred the old crest, but I don't remember the vitriol the Leeds crest caused and most agreed that from a marketing/merchandising standpoint it wasn't a bad move.

 

I think approving it for a debut at all was poor marketing.

 

Sheffield United host Aston Villa in a matchup of the two teams sandwiching Fulham in the table. A Blades victory will drop us back to 7th while defeat will keep us at least 1 point clear of 7th and 3 points behind 5th.

I'm hoping for a draw... and for Wednesday to get a result at Boro.

 

Hopefully Fulham can apply pressure to Villa who host Wolves in the late espn3 match. Probably asking too much for the dumpster fire that is Birmingham City to help us out at Cardiff, but Gary Monk is a really good manager and this is his 2nd match in charge.