Fulham @ Crystal Palace

First off...Ugh, it’s the 4am Sunday left coast game.

Palace are off one of the worst performances imaginable that ended with a victory. They were dominated, but not where it counts and that’s on the scoreboard. A huge plus for Fulham is that the Palace win alleviated pressure on the Eagles and fingers crossed Wilfred Zaha (who kills us) won’t be rushed back.

We will create chances and for the love Gawd let’s hope we can cash a couple in. Palace have a couple guys in Mateta & Benteke capable (as seen Mon) of spectacular finishes. Benteke worries me since like any striker in a slump it only takes one goal to reel off a few more.

EDIT: What’s a Palace preview w/out seeing the Kasami goal?

 

For the love of all things football, can we please, please win a Premier League London Derby for once?

 

This feels like one Fulham is well positioned to win, but I'm reluctant to get my hopes up too much. Crystal Palace really should have lost last week, but managed to steal a win. That was after losses to Burnley and Leeds. Over the last 8 matches Place and Fulham are even on points, but Fulham comes in with more momentum. Plus Fulham has had a full week to prepare which has helped in past matches this season.

As I said a few weeks ago I'm trying to take these matches as just stand-alone games rather than thinking about Fulham's chances for avoiding relegation. However, I couldn't help myself after Fulham closed the gap with Newcastle to just three points. This is the first time this season that Fulham has earned more points per match over the last 8 than what they would need to reach 37 points and probable safety. The chart below shows a green line that indicates the PPM Fulham has needed each week to get to 37 and the black line shows their PPM over the last 8.

After I gave up hope, Fulham managed to do well enough that I started thinking about the future again for them. Fulham needs to keep doing what they've done over the past 8 matches for the rest of the season. That means beating the occasional team like Everton and getting a couple wins against lower-mid competition like Newcastle, Burnley, Southamton, and Palace. They still need to at least double the number of wins they currently have. They have shown the form recently to do that, but we'll have to see if they can keep it up.

 

On the topic of PPM, since Andersen first joined the backline, Fulham have gotten 21 points from 19 games with a -2 GD. Extrapolating that out through the 25 games played to this point would have Fulham on 27/28 points right now, 27.63 to be exact, and they woild be 15/16 in the table with a better GD than anyone around them. I know you can't do that and you are where you are and all that. Just to show that Fulham have been consistently pretty good since this backline started playing together and that this team hasn't played like relegation fodder for a long time. Fulham is not the 18th best team in this league and hopefully they show that on Sunday

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I was hoping that this match would be on tv but it appears that there is another match with preference, so it's back to peacock. I guess I won't enjoy some Fulham with my coffee.

I'm not sure what I would predict but it's nice to be back to where there's a chance to take points from every match.

 

We just need to keep winning.

 

Our fate is officially in our own hands

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I'm up. The coffee is ready. Let's do this.

 

If only the goal were three feet wider, Fulham would've scored...

 

What a game(yawn). Thought Maja had won it with his header

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Should have been a win.

 

If the team was a collection of stiffs then I’d understand why we can’t score, but we have some real quality. Was afraid of a Nil-Nil result.

 

The highlights:


The first half was flat out boring. Both teams were pressing into the opposing half and were pretty well organized defensively, which snuffed out just about any offensive attacks. The second half was more entertaining especially after Cavaleiro came on - he really has shown the most value as a sub. Fulham was able to get more going by overloading the wings to make some space down the sides which then also stretched Palace to make some more room in the middle too. A number of good crosses were sent in, but there was either no one in position to take advantage, or the finish was poor, or Guaita/Cahill were just good enough. Fulham was the better team, but not good enough inside the box to get the win.

The biggest disappointment of the day was Mitrovic. He was practically immobile and was a step down from Anguissa's contributions. I appreciate Parker throwing the kitchen sink at Palace to get the win, but sadly Mitrovic hasn't shown anything to indicate he can be a threat again.

I missed the first few seconds of the second half, so I'm not sure why Aina was subbed out. I'm not sure if it was tactical or due to injury.

On a whole, a slightly disappointing day, but not terrible either. The team still looks pretty well organized just lacking in the finishing touch.

 

After getting three unexpected points at Everton, we really needed more than the five we got out of Burnley, Sheff U and Palace. Now we have Spuds, Scousers and Citeh before hosting a currently out of form Leeds. Will it be a lot harder to get multiple points out of those three? Yup. Can we do it? Yup. But I'd say a win and two draws would be the best we could hope for. We've already blown too many opportunities for more points this season for want of a single goal. But that's the hard part of this game, isn't it? We STILL have a chance with our defense. It's time for some luck to swing our way. Maybe. Bring on the Kanes!