Fulham at Nottingham Forest

Short turnaround week, so we've got a chance to erase the bitter pill we had to swallow at home against Boro and get a road win. Mark Warburton (a'memba him?) is in charge, and they've lost 4 of their last 5. But again, this is the Championship, which means that stat is absolutely irrelevant. We need to take care of our own business. If we do, we SHOULD get a result here.

 

Most interesting stat for this matchup; Forest have precisely ZERO draws, Fulham meanwhile lead the Championship with 5 draws. Grabbing 1 point a match (FFC has lost only 2, Forest 5, but the latter is 4 spots higher in the table) is like spinning your wheels in mud, the good guys have to find a way to get 3 points.

 

yep!

 

I feel better. MUCH better. We need the dancing bananas! BRING BACK THE DANCING BANANAS!

 

Highlights from the Nottingham Forest YouTube channel (taking from the rich and giving to the poor, am I right?!)


This doesn't show a couple cases of desperate defending on the part of Fulham. Once Ream blocked a shot that looked certain to go in, but it still came close to the line where Kalas headed it away over the bar. We were lucky Forest didn't get a second equalizer.

Also, when watching the commentary with GJ and Jamie they said that Kamara appeared to have pulled up just before our third goal with a hamstring issue - we had no subs left at that point. They said he stayed out of the play, but I took notice that Mollo did what Kamara had not done to that point - pass to the open man in the box. Before I get too negative on him, I liked Kamara's goal in the first half - he kept himself just onside, made just enough moves to get space, and went for accuracy instead of power to ensure the score. I haven't heard anything further about the status of Kamara's injury.

Overall a great match for us. Hopefully we stay healthy enough to put out a strong team on Friday when we head over to QPR.

 

As "The Beat" once sang: 'Bump, Bump!' Up to 11th

 

Good win!

 

I had a chance to watch the full 90 minutes on this one and the game was much closer than the score indicated. This was not a typical Fulham game where we dominate possession and control the pace of the match. It felt like Forest was dictating how the game was played far more than Fulham. The starting lineup had a terrible time maintaining possession. Part of this was that Forest always put pressure on us - even in our own half. Everyone at the back, except maybe Kalas, made multiple poor decisions under this pressure. Our midfielders seemed to be playing as individuals and couldn't link up at all. Things got better in the second half after some of the substitutions, but I don't think that Ojo/Fonte/Sessegnon made a great midfield trio.

Despite that we still won because we managed to take advantage of our opportunities. Our first goal game against the run of play. We had only just had our first sustained possession more than 10 minutes in when Forest had a breakaway that was called offside. While some of the Nottingham Forest players flapped their arms in protest Fulham quickly countered and Kamara got the goal. I've mentioned before that it seems like we hardly score on set pieces any more, so it was great to see Johanssen lob one in for once.

So I'm left a little concerned about the shoddy play of Fulham, but I'm heartened that for once Fulham was the team that took the initiative to get a goal against the run of play. We still have to maintain or composure better at the back when a team is on top of us, but that could have partly been due to the midfield not getting space. I think that Jokanovic understood the midfield wasn't working they way he had hoped which is why we saw a halftime substitution and rearrangement of formation. I think that's likely the last time we'll see that particular starting XI.