Fulham vs. Derby

Fulham has a short turnaround and hosts Derby at the Cottage on Tuesday night.

Derby has had a rocky season with a drunk-driving car crash injuring two of their players and eventually leading to the ouster of team captain Richard Keogh who was also involved in the accident.

I mentioned prior to the QPR match that Derby was the only team Fulham hadn't played yet that wasn't in the top half of the table. Well after their victory over Preston, Derby is now in the top half again. Derby has been terrible away from home having failed to even score in their last three away matches. They haven't won on the road since week 1.

Fulham will see Mitrovic back in the lineup with a chance to get three wins in a row for the first time since August. The matches won't get any easier for Fulham after Derby, so this is an important chance to earn three points to stay in the playoff spots.

 

Don’t know much about Derby post-Lampard, except the obvious: they’re 11th with 24 points (we’ve got 29) and sport a -2 goal difference (we’re +8). I share your concern about Ream Don, but the fact is we need him out there. Hopefully Parker gave him some extra down time after Friday. We still need to improve on defense overall...a LOT. It’s also tough to return a player to the bench after a brace. Kamara is a conundrum. He has obvious gifts but, as we’ve seen, doesn’t always make optimum use of them. Plus, his soccer IQ isn’t real high. He’s a good option to have if Mitro’s out, but I think we’re kind of tolerating him. Wouldn’t surprise me to see him move in January.
Here’s hoping that some of the balls that clattered the woodwork or just missed the inside of the post Friday go in today. Gotta start making up for some of those early season draws against teams we should have beaten. This would be one of those opportunities, one would think.

 

That score is worth 2 bananas!!!!

 

3 wins in a row, up to 3rd in the table. Amazing how that works, is it not? The highlights look nice.



What’s not to love about 3 goals and a clean sheet? The thing that caught my attention was Kamara’s pass first mentality. He’s been subject to bouts of greed when anywhere near the 18. Tonight he passed up at least one occasion to fashion a longer, more difficult and probably challenged shot to keep his dribble and maneuver for a better shot or pass. And the cross he sent in that Bobby headed in with authority was on a tee.
Lots of futbol left, but that’s a solid home W that we needed going into the holiday fixture schedule.
Happy Thanksgiving fellow Fulhamericans!

 

You are spot on with this. Until he went out injured , Kamara was setting up all kinds of opportunities. You could tell that the Derby defense didn't know what do with him - Was he going to pass? Was he going to cut into the box? Was he going to take it wide for a cross? He had Derby twisting wildly about. Sometimes his passes were poor, but I liked what he was trying to do and he set up Fulham nicely for a number of shots including the first goal.

The whole squad looked good going forward. So often Fulham seems to pass sideways with no real threat. Not tonight. Fulham was regularly getting into dangerous positions and it was fun to watch! It was far removed from what they looked like against Hull.

Fulham also played well defensively tonight. A clean sheet built from zero shots on target. Derby didn't have their shooting boots on, but Fulham was also cutting down the scoring opportunities. Fulham was regularly getting into passing lanes and making interceptions to snuff out Derby attacks. Credit also needs to be given to Rodak who seemed to have a good sense of when to stop trying to build up from the back and just boot it downfield. Plus, he sometimes turned his clearance into a great pass that turned into an immediate attack.

This was one of my favorite matches this season. I just hope that injuries to Bobby Reid and Kamara aren't too bad because they just seemed to be hitting on all cylinders tonight.

Slightly longer highlights via Derby:

 

How frustrating is it to get FREE extended highlights from our competitors?
I will add this: their play-by-play guy was correct in his assessment of the Rams’ performance...poor. But...you’ve still got to go out there and put in effective shifts yourselves. And that’s exactly what we did.
Hopefully the start of a long unbeaten run like the one two years ago. While the ensuing, scintillating playoff run was nice, my vascular system will not survive another such experience. Automatic promotion please, lads.
Oh, did anyone else have a Wembley flashback on Cairney’s cake topper? Not quite the same buildup, but that one timer from the right on the move...gave me goose bumps.