Fulham @ Birmingham City

The match will only be available on FFCTV. It starts at 2:45pm EDT.

West Brom had a surprising draw at home against Derby this afternoon. That means that if Fulham win against Birmingham they can be top of the table again. However, with Bournemouth's win today, if Fulham does not get three points they will be outside the automatic promotion spots for the first time since week 1.

Wilson will be back in the squad, however it looks like Caravalho will still be unavailable (oddly, I hope this is a legitimate injury and not some behind the scenes contractual games). Fulham will need all the firepower they can get with Birmingham having the league's best defense so far - just three goals allowed. Fulham is right behind them having only allowed four goals.

 

Great that we're up 2 at halftime. Even greater that Mitrovic converted a PK.

 

Missed this one, too, because of work. However, while this far from a controlled, double-blinded experiment, I am now fairly confident that my missing the Blackpool game didn’t cause Fulham to lose that one. By all accounts, it seems like we bossed this game and won deservingly. Looking forward to some first-hand (eye?) reactions.

So nice to have Mitro on his horse again.

 

Ah, so clearly ONE of us needs to watch it live! I had us covered today. Science!

I'm not sure how long we'll have to wait for highlights since this was a late game, so I'll go ahead and share my thoughts without the highlights.

Some viewers might say the scoreline of 4-1 was too generous for Fulham given the general balance of play, but I think it was the superior quality of Fulham that made the difference at key moments. Fulham was almost undone in the first half by the grounds at St. Andrew's. First, the pitch was very slick and Fulham players kept falling, more so than Birmingham players. A couple of times this put the Fulham defense in a terrible position as they tried to play up from the back. Fulham also made some really poor passes playing up from the back that I think may have been due to the poor lighting on the field. They just passed it straight to Birmingham players on a couple of occasions and I have to think the deep shadows had something to do with it. The officiating wasn't great either with a Birmingham player taking down Wilson just before he entered the box with not even a foul called when later in the day a red was given for a similar play in the Atletico/Porto match. Both Birmingham and Fulham were taking cheap shots and it let to a lot of tension in the second half. I was surprised no one was sent off.

Fortunately, the defense was able to snuff out the danger in the first half. Tosin was key in keeping Birmingham off the scoreboard. He always seemed to be in the right place inside the box to clear the ball. Joe Bryan played well and didn't make anyone feel like something was missing on the left side. Gazzaniga made one particularly good save but he also made some questionable passes playing up from the back. The funny thing is that he seemed much better with sending long balls. Hopefully the coaching staff took notice and will encourage more of that when playing up from the back just isn't working.

Dennis Odoi was Dennis Odoi - you take the good with the bad. The first goal was right off the training ground. Fulham runners had defenders chase them out to clear the 6-yard box. Then Chalobah did a great impersonation of a concrete pillar for Odoi to run around thus taking out his mark. Wilson sent the ball spot on to where Odoi was running and he got a free header to score. It was a perfect corner and brought back memories of his winning header against Derby in the playoffs. Then late in the match, with Fulham's defense working hard for a shutout, Odoi pulled Deeney down in the box to gift him a penalty. It was unnecessary, but fortunate that it didn't matter in the end result.

It was fantastic to have Wilson back. He is just so good getting back behind defensive lines. That gives him opportunities but also causes a little chaos that others can take advantage of. His goal was the result of an absolutely beautiful pass from Chalobah to put him in on the goal keeper one-on-one. Chalobah had a number of other good passes and generally played well. He's really tall too! I kept wondering why Tosin was so far up the pitch.

Mitrovic also played well. His work with Seri on the fourth goal was fantastic. They had the Birmingham defense helplessly spinning as he slotted in his second goal. I was thankful that he converted his penalty - we did not need another miss to kill his confidence. However, I still don't think it was a great PK and Fulham should consider other options.

It was a very entertaining match and I thought Birmingham generally played well. It was a fine line between a 1-1 finish and a 4-1 finish, but Fulham's skilled players on defense and offense made the difference. It was a great response to their first loss of the season and got them back to the top of the table.

 

My afternoon was going poorly so I thought when I checked the score my luck would rub off on Fulham. Glad to see it didn’t.

 

Here is a link to Fulham's short highlights, hopefully we'll get more from Birmingham on Thursday:


I forgot to mention earlier - Gazzaniga cut off his hair! No more bun. He must have had something in his contract if Fulham lost a match with him starting.

 

And Birmingham City has kindly posted extended highlights for your viewing pleasure:

 

This performance and ensuing result would seem to confirm the notion that Blackpool was an anomaly. That last give and go for the final goal from Mitro was sublime. The passes were perfectly positioned and weighted…and they had to be. I’m gonna hate the next international break as much as the first one, methinks. The fun is back!

 

I'm all over the place regarding that assessment. This season Fulham feels like it may be more Silva's team than prior squads were Jokanovic's or Parker's, and that makes me want to say more credit should go to Silva. However even if that is true, Khan then deserves some credit for turning over some decision making on player acquisition. Then I also find myself looking at how this team is doing so well in the Championship along with seeing Andersen getting regular time at Palace and Lookman and Anguissa both playing in a competitive Europa League match today and I think there was enough quality on this squad last year that another manager probably would have done better. So I guess I'm edging toward giving him credit, but I just don't WANT to give him credit.

From what I've seen the EFL provides each team with two minutes of highlights that they can post. I think about half the Championship teams use these highlights on their YouTube channels, including Fulham. A few other teams, like Birmingham and Hull, post extended highlights to their YouTube channels that they have edited on their own. A number of teams, including Fulham, make their own extended highlights, but they put them behind a paywall. If you have an FFCTV subscription you can watch 11 minutes of highlights with GJ's commentary from the Birmingham match - and these highlights are great! So Fulham does have highlights just as good as anyone else's, they just don't make them available for free. I think that is short sighted. I think it makes it harder to keep engaged with the club especially in the Championship where information is harder to find. I'm a Fulham fan because I got emotionally attached to the club listening to Gentleman Jim. That would be impossible for a new fan now because you have to be committed enough to the team to plop down money to even hear him.

 

I’m with you on this Don and not just this offseason but the season before as well. I’m willing to give Silva a large slice of credit but he’s not doing solely with players that were bought this season. Off the top of my head Tete, Tosin, Robinson, Reed and Onahma all started under Parker. Mitro, Odoi, Mawson and Bryan under Slavisa and Ream before that along with others I’d have to lookup.

Tony gets stick because he has an abrasive personality and made early mistakes but it takes time to build a good squad and by my judgement we look far better than the last time we were in the Championship.