Fulham at Coventry City

Fulham travels to Coventry City Saturday. The good news is that the match will be on ESPN+. The bad news is that the game starts at 7:30am EDT - way to early for the west coast.

Fulham and Coventry City have not faced each other in a league match since 1967/68. That was the last year of Fulham's 9 year run in the top tier during the 60's and the first year of Coventry's 34 year run in the top tier. At the time of their relegation in 2001 only Liverpool, Arsenal, and Everton had been there longer. And of course we all know what team took one of those Premier League spots Coventry vacated - it was Fulham. Once Fulham went down to the Championship Coventry had dropped to League One two years earlier. So these two haven't played much in recent years despite having extended stays in the top tier. In case you were wondering, Fulham got the better of Coventry in 1967/68 with a home draw and a 3-0 away win.

Coventry has shocked everyone by getting near the top of the table - at one point reaching second place. They are the only team with a perfect home record and have only given up two goals over five matches at home. Those are Coventry's strong points. On the other side it should be pointed out that they have not yet faced a team currently in the top seven and have not earned any points or scored against a team currently in the top 10.

Fulham could have issues at left back with Robinson and Bryan both potentially out with injuries. I expect Fulham to adjust and keep winning. I'm looking for a repeat of the away score from 67/68 - a 3-0 win for Fulham.

 

Thanks for the history @MicahMan. As a relative newbie (less than a decade) to English Football, it’s always interesting to hear this kind of stuff.

I don’t think that I’ve tried, but can you start a game from the beginning if you show up late on ESPN+? I know with MLB.tv you have the option to join a game live or start from the beginning. This may be an option for people further left of the Atlantic. For me, 7:30 is just about perfect.

Based on standing and form to start the season, I’m expecting a tough match. Fulham are a bit unpredictable though. They can sleepwalk through a defeat to Blackpool one day and thrash a more quality opponent the next. Maybe Coventry’s promotion bump is done though.

Maybe Silva will deploy Ream at left back since he’s spent time there with the national team (though I despise it every time because he’s a center back that can play wide but not a wingback like everyone on Twitter thinks and spends all their time disparaging him and his abilities… back that’s another discussion all together). Odoi has been flexible in the past so maybe he goes left and Christie slots in on the right. The good news is that the front line is healthy (sans Carvalho) so we should be able to out score them if the defense falters. I’m looking for another 3 points to close out this window.

 

I was intrigued by this, so I just gave it a shot with the Stoke/West Brom match that is on live now. I joined 10 minutes in, but now I'm watching it from just after the kickoff, so it seems like you can rewind and watch from there. It was hard to find the start of the match, there is a LOT of "the event is about to begin" filler before the match actually starts. If you get to half time and then you want to join it live you can click the LIVE button in the lower left corner.

In other news, Fulham said on their website that Robinson and Bryan should be available for the match on Saturday. They also said Carvalho hopes to be back after the international break.

 

I love the early start time. Lets me get the game in with a very quiet house. Plus my kids game is just an hour later (if the rain stays away.)

 

70 minutes in and my mood has shifted from frustrated to embarrassed.

 

Well I couldn’t have been any more wrong. For a little bit I wasn’t sure if we had time traveled back to the first match of the season. Fulham was incredibly out of sync - many instances when a player was expecting the ball at their feet but it was played into space or vice versa.

It’s also a shame how the ref completely shifted the feel of the match with his phantom penalty against Robinson. It’s not the reason that Fulham lost, but it certainly changed the mood. After the 4th goal, my wife asked if the team could just give up the rest of the match. My response was “I think they already have.” That’s probably about the time that Brad posted.

I don’t know how many players are getting called away for international duty, but Silva has his work cut out for him. He needs to create cohesion and get the team back to their winning ways.

 

So, I was drafted for grandson bedroom conversion duty this morning an hour and a half from my La-Z-Boy.
What the he’ll happened?

 

The game got away from us. It's hard to win any game where the conditions are terrible, you gift the opposition a goal*, a penalty is given against you**, and a the opposition scores from a low-angle howitzer***.

Silva needs to make several adjustments in light of this recent string of games, but so many folks are saying we're in a crisis and capitulated yesterday. Nonsense. IMHO this was one where you fix some issues, swap some players, and then burn the game tape.

*This was a mistake you dont see past U-16: Ream misplaced a bad pass from Gazza, and then immediately collided with Onomah because no one shouted MINE, or at least booted it clear.
**A total dive and phantom penalty that any level of VAR would have ruled out
***90% of the time this shot sails wayyy wide.

 

Tim Ream put it best when in befuddlement he muttered "What the hell was that?" after the first goal. That was the whole match in a nutshell. Here are the highlights:


I've never been more embarrassed of a Fulham performance. The closest I could remember was the time Fulham (I think it was Kalas) got a red card in the first 30 seconds of the game.

@timmyg did a good job of summarizing the issues. I think the conditions played a big part in this one and Fulham did not adjust well. It looked to me like the water logged field was slowing down the ball and Fulham just didn't adjust. Onomah was particularly poor and had a number of occasions didn't go to a ball because he seemed to think it would have more speed and that would lead to a turnover. I have no idea what he was doing on the first goal - he was blocking as if Ream was a keeper and was just going to pick the ball up with his hands. When Seri came on to replace Onomah he had similar problems with handling the ball. I think Gazzaniga also struggled with his passing. I was begging them to stop playing up from the back because this was not the day for intricate passes in your own half. So I also put some of the blame on Silva because I don't think adjusted adequately for the conditions.

Although Fulham was in the lead at the half, they didn't look great. At half time I thought it was likely to be a draw, but the double gut punch of the first goal horror show followed by the phantom penalty just minutes later crushed any hope of getting points on a really crummy day.

So we thought Blackpool would be the worst performance all season. We were wrong about that, but THIS has to be the worst right?

 

If it could’ve gone wrong it did. Matches like this happen the question is how does the squad respond.

 

All I know is that we were pretty good before the first international break, and lousy afterwards. I don't pretend to know the intricate details involved in the logistics and dynamics of such breaks, but whatever they are, we didn't cope with them this go around. Here's hoping that we come out of this one with a better handle on what went right before the last one and wrong afterwards.

 

This brings back memories of last season when after Fulham got burned on a stupid VAR/handball call they changed the rules. Well now after a dive wasn't caught in the game, the player doing the diving gets suspended for two matches. That helps Blackpool and Preston, but doesn't do much for Fulham except to point out again it was a terrible missed call.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/58843445