Fulham v. West Ham

It's on NBC!!! Feel free to discuss among yourselves...COYW

 

My wife said she wanted to wrap up Christmas shopping on Saturday morning and I started stomping my feet and whining "But I'll miss the Fulham match!" Then I went to see if I'd be able to watch it on Gold and did further whining and stomping when I saw it wasn't available - then I noticed the match started at 12:30 and that could mean only one thing! It was going to be the feature game on NBC! My delight at being able to finish shopping and still see Fulham lasted for about two seconds and then I thought "I hope they don't embarrass themselves."

West Ham comes in on a hot streak having won three in a row after getting hammered (ha! bet no one's ever said that before) by Manchester City. They've scored three goals in each of the past three matches so there isn't much reason to hope that Fulham will be able to shut up everyone about their lack of any clean sheets.

Callum Chambers should be back in the lineup for Fulham. McDonald is also available again if Ranieri wants him. Anguissa will serve out his one-game suspension, but no loss there. West Ham will not be able to play one of their strikers, Perez, and it is unlikely that we'll get to see Fulham alumnus Ryan Fredericks.

I'll be happy if we can get a point from this one. After last week's abysmal showing they need to get things headed in the right direction going into this series of fixtures where Fulham needs to earn points.

 

I will not miss Anguissa. The last few times that I've seen him, he's played the match with the intensity and urgency of a pick-up game down at the park.

I also pray that these announcers are better than the others that we've had to deal with this season. I'm so tired of the pro-top 6 sentiment and sometimes blatant favoritism.

 

Hate to be a debbie downer (sorry Don), but I don't see us getting anything out of this one. After a wretched start, Spam have found their footing and are very much in form. Despite his assertion that Italian coaches are primarily concerned about clean sheets first, I've seen no evidence of this from Signor Ranieri. We gave ManUre way too much space and time, but I'm not sure we have the talent to close attackers down. But we've got to try. A clean sheet from this side would be nothing short of a miracle. Even when we've scored first, we've been unable to keep our opponents from scoring. That's not likely to change. I'll be pleasantly surprised if it does. And I hope the gaffer goes back to the Leicester lineup that seemed to be working well at the end of that match.

 

@jumpkutz I likey the reverse psychology



Hosting a holiday party so hope to be popping into the chat after our goals (I didn’t just jinx us did I?)

 

Wish it had worked. The defense isn't any better under Ranieri than it was under Joka. And I don't see it getting any better. We may not keep a clean sheet this season. Everybody we play is going to assume that they're going to score against us, even the most goal challenged among them. We've outscored five of the teams ahead of us, including Newcastle, our next opponent, and the two teams with us in the relegation zone, Southampton and Huddersfield. Everyone knows the problem. Replacing Slav with Claudio doesn't appear to have solved it. What's left? We can't afford to wait until the January window to acquire better defenders. It will be too late. In fact, it may already BE too late to salvage this season.

 

There are only 7 points separating the bottom 7 teams. It is no where near too late...if you fix the problem. It’s a pretty damn big problem though. Bit of a miracle we aren’t further adrift in my opinion.

 

Well now after Southampton’s shock win over Arsenal, we are further adrift.

I just don’t understand the lack of discipline in defense. And even more so (like jump? said), the offense is suffering even though the defense is not improving.

 

At times this felt like a vintage West Ham match: they play like doo-doo yet frustratingly cruise to a 2-0/3-1 victory because we play even worse.

At other times, this felt like our past relegation season: constant reminders that we are really bad. Outside of Mitrovic and maybe Sergio Rico, no one seems to have a role or be particularly good at their role. Our defense is mess, and there's no one available to change our approach, as evidenced by yet another game where we go down early and then muster 1-2 shots *total* in the 2nd half.

This was just the 4th game under Claudio, so its still very early, but I don't really know what else to say at this point.

 

Right now, two things are equally true: 1. Fulham are $hit; and, 2. Time remains to turn it around.

I had the opportunity to listen to 75% of the match on SiriusXM FC (yeah, I know it was televised) and Fulham's abject display came through loud and clear over the air. And the commentators were blunt in their description of Odoi's performance - I can't say if it was as decrepit as portrayed, but they said he puts in the effort but does not have the talent to play in the Premier League - and they deftly applied that description to nearly everybody (save Cairney) on the pitch for the Whites. Based on results thus far, I do not disagree.

COYW

 

The problem is, there's no evidence to date that Claudio is going to fix the problem. I haven't looked at the numbers, but I'm reasonably certain that they're no different, per capita, or by any other measurement, from before. Yeah, it's only been four games. But everyone...EVERYONE knows the issue. And I've seen nothing change with the defending in those four games. We just happened to outscore Southampton, at home.

 

Mark Hughes is available...