Fulham vs Southampton

We've got 5 points. They've got 8 points. We're at home with a new manager, one whom I would assume has been working on defending a lot more than we have been. What to expect? Who knows, but if we've any hope of survival, we've got to start winning the winnable ones. This is one of those.

 

Need the Cottage to be rocking and something good to happen early. COYW!!

 

The formation is different (3-4-2-1), but the names are familiar in the first match of the Ranieri era

Rico
Odoi, Chambers, Mawson
Christie, Cairney, Seri, LeMarchand
Schurrle, Sessegnon
Mitrovic

Subs: Betinelli, Ream, Bryan, Kebano, Johansen, Ayite, Kamara

Other than the formation, the most interesting theing for me is that Anguissa and Fosu-Mensah aren't even on the bench. Here's to a fresh start and hopefully 3 points! COYW!!

 

3 points would be optimal, but having a result would be a step in the right direction. 1-1 finish.

 

A step in the right direction it is!

 

I've never been so glad to be wrong about a score. A well deserved 3 points!

 

We have life!

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Gonna watch the replay later tonight, but some observations from the scoring highlights.
1) The defending is still an issue, obviously. It's to the point where we're going to have to eat some money in January and get some players who can defend. Right now, there's nobody. None of the holdovers or new guys have shown anything. Our offensive players aren't, as a group, good defenders either, although it's nice to have Mitro back on set pieces. But the others have to be exponentially better at defending, and they're just not.
2) It's nice to see some goal scoring for a change, especially from Mitro. We've got to get him service at any cost. I think he regained some confidence scoring for Serbia during the break and it carried over to today. Sess broke even, contributing spectacularly to Schurrle's goal but initiating the sequence that led to their leveler with a loose header. Both of them are defensive liabilities, so we've got to make up for that elsewhere. The jury's still out on Schurrle, but he's already scored 5 in 13 appearances for us after netting just 3 in 33 for Dortmund over the past TWO seasons. Keep running him out there until the goals dry up. All this to say thank goodness we stopped the bleeding, at least for one match. Still a lot of work to do, but this can be the first step in climbing out of this deep hole we've dug.

 

12 minutes of highlights for your enjoyment:


Both conceded goals came off of loose headers into the center of the pitch. The first was from LeMarchand who's header to Armstrong was so spot-on that he really deserved credit for an assist. As Jump pointed out, Sessegnon was guilty on the second goal. Most of the time LeMarchand is terrible with the ball. Every time he touches it I assume Fulham is about to lose possession (occasionally he proves me wrong and manages to get an assist on a Fulham goal). Cyrus Christie also doesn't impress me, but he's the best option we've got at right-back. Of course, he also got an assist, but too often he runs himself into dead-ends when on attack. Maybe a healthy Bryan can improve things on the left side, but we certainly need some new talent on the right side of defense.

There was a lot of good stuff though. Sessegnon got two assists and reminded us of what he is capable of. Tom Cairney also asserted himself again and managed to get things going from the midfield. While not perfect, Fulham seemed much more organized on defense. When Fulham lost possession they quickly fell back and organized themselves so they avoided breakaways that have killed us so much recently. It was also great to see Fulham effectively make use of the counter-attack rather than being on the receiving end all the time. Fulham only had 37% possession, but as we know that doesn't win games. Against Southampton at least, Ranieri's version of Fulham was able to find success by being more direct and not worrying about if they controlled the ball.

Sure you can say "It was only against Southampton" but that's exactly the kind of team we need to defeat at home. This is the minimum requirement for getting out of relegation. Hopefully they can keep building from that.

 

I agree with Jump and commented to Bob in the chat room that the biggest change I saw was Fulham conceding possession, sitting back to defend and then quickly countering. Attacking with urgency without giving the defense ample time to get back and set up is something we have not seen enough of this season. Doing so created space for Mitro instead of having multiple defenders riding his back.

The defense was still shaky at best and I thought a better attacking team would have punished Fulham yesterday but I did appreciate the gut busting group runs made to shut down breakaways.

 

Yes we're at the bottom of the table, but there are 6 teams with 8 or 9 points. I'm hoping we can follow Huddersfield's example -- by winning yesterday, they jumped from 20th to 14th.

 

What a fun match to watch and finally sign up for the NBC package deal. Agree with Jump, they will have to do better with the back 3-4. The midfield saved them too many times. The concern from the match for me thought was Cairney. He doesn't look himself out there and had a couple of really poor passes. not upset on bit about it though. They needed a win, they got the win.

 

After watching the entire match, my opinion is largely unchanged. It’s kind of a microcosm of how overrated time of possession and playing out of the back can be. It’s not ideal, but it’s not the be all, end all of the bloody sport. Yeah, it’s probably a good idea in practice, over the long haul. But you’ve gotta have superior talent to do it. Two final points. I thought Christie did OK, but he fell asleep on the throw in that led to the first goal. Not the first time that’s happened in the past several seasons. It’s unacceptable, especially at this level. And, we’re not anywhere close to earning any penalty kicks. Need to be more aggressive in the opposition penalty area. And then, MAKE THEM!!!