Fulham vs. Cardiff City

I’m starting this one a bit early because I’m watching the Bluebirds getting hammered in the Welsh Derby at Swansea amid rampant speculation that Mick McCarthy may not be making the journey to SW6 with them. Even the broadcast announcers had him all but gone without at least a draw.

 

The Chairman is in London for the QPR and Cardiff matches and the Jags yesterday. He’s 2 for 2 so far. Above is the interview he gave FFC TV, at the 6 min mark he tours CC and the new stand.

 

From the "I am not making this up" viewpoint, Walesonline has live updates going on Mick McCarthy's pending status as Cardiff's manager. According to their writer Tom Coleman, it's looking like he'll be on the coach to the Cottage, at least at this period in time. He also rightly points out that things can change quickly. I don't see Cardiff players circling the wagons to protect their gaffer, but that doesn't necessarily mean they won't play better. But I would think that if he's still in charge Wednesday night, our chances of a win and three points are much better than average. As the Right Honourable Gentleman from the Republic of South Texas noted, this is where you have to take care of business against a team on the ropes and get all the points if you are going to get one of those automatic promotion spots.

 

McCarthy has supposedly been given two more matches to right the ship. At any rate, it appears he will be on the visiting touchline tomorrow at the Cottage.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/current-state-play-cardiff-city-21899388

 

This match will only be available on FFCTV (ESPN is showing Swansea and West Brom)

It turns out Carvalho got covid so he now has a further delay after recovering from his toe injury. Bryan and Cavaleiro will also be out (I'm only upset about one of those). There is a chance that Tete will be on the bench and we might get to see Cairney on the pitch at some point.

As has been mentioned, Cardiff has been playing poorly. They have lost six in a row and have only scored once in that span. Over the past eight matches no one in the league has fewer points (3). Meanwhile Fulham hasn't won two in a row since August, but expectation is that streak will end against Cardiff. Fulham needs to score early and boss this match for the full 90. Fulham has outscored their opponents 16-3 in the first half of games this season, but is even at 11 goals a piece in the second half. This is a match that Fulham should control, but if Cardiff gets into the second half even with Fulham I'll start to worry.

Oh, and Bournemouth got another 1-goal win today - their sixth 1-goal win of the season (of Fulham's 7 wins only one was by just 1-goal). That's Parker-ball!

 

CAIRNEY!!!!!!

 

Well I WAS worried when the second half started at 0-0, but Cairney saved the day! His strike was absolutely delicious! Classic Cairney-with-the-left-foot like he'd never missed a match. It would be easy to forget he was just four days shy of a year without a goal. The moment was not lost on Cairney, he was clearly emotional about it as this photo after the goal shows:


As Cairney's teammates climbed on his shoulders when he celebrated at the Hammersmith end GJ was clearly thinking about TC's knees and shouted "Dear God, don't jump on him!"

Fulham struggled to find its way in the first half and was pretty even with Cardiff and both teams sent shots off the woodwork. Fulham had better opportunities, but I was worried that Cardiff was hanging in there and could nick a goal. However, for once this season, Fulham came out firing in the second half. Cairney came on at the half because Reed was having some kind of trouble at the end of the first half. While I feel bad for Reed, Fulham was clearly improved with Cairney on the water-logged pitch. Fulham absolutely controlled the match for the next twenty minutes and scored twice. Fulham started making some poor choices as the game got into the last 20 minutes, but Rodak came up with some good saves to save the clean sheet.

• First back-to-back win since August
• First shutout since August
• First appearance from Cairney since 2020
• Swansea comes from behind to beat West Brom leaving Fulham in 2nd place

It was a good night.

 

A good night indeed, MM. I was gonna mention the clean sheet as well. That's big. Even though it was against a faltering side, any improvement in defense is a welcome sight. I think we've proved we can score in this league, so keeping the ball out of our own net consistently will help a lot in getting one of those automatic promotion spots.

 

And here are the highlights:

 

I needed this.

 

GJ's call of Cairney's goal: