Fulham vs. Burnley

The Clarets visit the Cottage on Monday afternoon for the first of what has to be a highly unlikely four game winning streak if we have any mathematical chance of staying up. Given Leicester’s pitiful capitulation to Newcastle on Friday evening, the Magpies appear assured of safety even if they lose to Citeh (likely) and Sheffield United (unlikely) before their now moot visit to our place for the season finale. Doesn’t it seem just a few scant weeks ago that we were on the verge of overtaking them for 17th? Shows how quickly things can and do change at this level. Just keeping up won’t cut it. It will be interesting to see how the players perform. They’ve got to know deep down that it’s over and that relegation is inevitable. I’d really like to see the kind of energy we displayed against Liverpool (in both matches) and Leicester at the King Power, but we haven’t seen it for so long, I wonder if we’re capable of reproducing it at all. This group hasn’t shown a lot of gumption and resolve when they’ve been hit in the mouth, and I wonder if some of them have mentally checked out. And some of the veterans, not just the youngsters, who you might assume would be susceptible to such immature tendencies. All I truly want is for us to play to win, not draw or lose, and push forward with more aggression and urgency when we win the ball. I’m not going to stomach more meaningless backfield possession or insane stubbornness to play out from the back, no matter how high and intense the pressure. And I’ll wager my new Louisville City FC kit that’s exactly what we’ll do. Burnley’s approach is no mystery under Sean Dyche. Don’t play into their hands and make it harder for us. Make it harder on THEM.

 

You can’t be surprised by the disparity in effort and desperation. The stakes are significantly higher for the Newcastle players. In the last 4 matches, they’ve used one loan player who has made 1 start and come on as a sub twice. Conversely, Fulham’s last 4 matches have seen the following loan starters/subs- 6/0, 5/1, 6/1, 6/1. If Newcastle come up short, most of them are going to the Championship. If Fulham fail, most of them just go back to their parent clubs. I know which group I’d back to be more committed.

 

Sorry, I'm going to disagree with this "loaners dont care/aren't committed" nonsense. It's a specious narrative.

Now, you can absolutely complain about our short-term recruitment strategy as a whole and how that kneecaps us each season. And that if we're ever going to be anything beyond a yo-yo club, Tony Khan needs to step aside or hire a full-time DoF.

But with the exception of RLC, who can be fired into the sun, all our loaners are getting regular minutes because they're better than our contracted players. And with the exception of Andersen and Areola, practically all their futures are very murky after we go down. Lemina has no perceptible future at Soho; same with Maja at Bordeaux, and Lookman at Leipzig. Aina's parent club Torino might get relegated from Serie A.

This group hasn't played well since March (February?) not because of fight but because we've been figured out, and Scott doesn't have any more cards up his sleeve while refusing to go all-in and throw the kitchen sink. As I wrote in another thread, we're incredibly predictable but more importantly stoppable.

Burnley will probably cruise to a 2-0 victory because we can't match their physicality, and we only really match up well against two types of teams: one's we're superior than (and then we barely win; see Sheff United; the entire 2019-2020 season), and ones that are weakened to the point we can hold out against (see: Leicester, Everton, Liverpool).

Anyway, cant wait!

 

Don, I actually looked it up on football-lineups.com (so thankful the site still exists, but boy howdy they need a refresh), and only twice this season has Scott played with 2 up front: way back in December at City and vs Liverpool. The two up top were...Cav and Lookman. Both are not strikers.

Last season he played 4-3-3 a fair bit more, but from the data available only twice was there two bonafide forwards on the field at the same time in the traditional sense.

Should Maja and Mitro both start? Absolutely. History, however...

 

Breaking News: (not really). West Brom relegated after losing at gooners 3-1. That ties them with Norwich City, who've earned promotion to the PL next season, for most times relegated from the same, with 5.

 

Today’s lineup.
Today’s mission: get the ball to Mitro somewhere in the 18.

 

The OPPONENT’S 18...

 

Utterly pathetic half, going down w/a whimper. When the team has quit, hard to keep the gaffer around (and I’ve been a Pro-Parker person).

 

Not an inspiring performance, and it symbolizes the season.

Enough blame to go around, but if one person in particular hurts our ability to build a quality team, it is Tony Khan. And he's not going anywhere. And as long as he's controlling personnel matters, we'll remain a yoyo club at best.

 

I was debating watching the replay on peacock, but I've already had a rough day, so I checked the score and read your comments. I guess I'll skip it. At least I don't have to subscribe to peacock anymore.

 

Today was simply the coronation of the inevitable. There hasn’t been anything inspiring about the attack all season and there was certainly nothing inspiring about it today.

 

Not much to see here, but for the historic record here are the highlights:

I was in the same boat. I had not had access to Peacock for three weeks since we've been moving houses and the place that had internet didn't have a TV. Then when I finally tried to restart the service it didn't work. I was on with Comcast reps for almost three hours today until they finally flipped a switch to activate it again. Then I saw the halftime score and realized my Comcast torture had merely been a prelude.

I second the comments that Tony Khan is the major problem, but I also think Parker didn't do Fulham any favors by killing off the flashes of creativity that we saw in some matches with methodical, deliberate, and ineffective build-up play. Fulham may have enough of a core squad to be competitive in the Championship next year, but I hope Khan or Parker have learned something after being relegated twice now.

 

You didn't need to watch this match to know what it looked like...we've seen the same throughout the '20-'21 campaign.
Come on you Sky-Bet Championship Whites!!!

 

There was a sequence of play right before Burnley's opener that epitomized our approach, performances, and results of this joyless campaign.

I'm paraphrasing but the color commentator Matt Holland was discussing how we like to play between the lines, and we're easy on the eye, but toothless in the final third.

Well, Areola, Tosin, and Andersen were attempting to play it out the back (yes, this passes for "easy on the eye" in 2021; pundits are always stuck 10 years behind) but Burnley did what Chelsea did which is what most opponents have done recently which is press high and clamp down on any outlets in the midfield.

After several passes back and forth Tosin huffed it because what does a CB do when they cant play it out the back? They huff it and essentially concede possession or hope something good happens up field.

I think Anguissa got a head onto it, but a Burnley player (I forget who) recovered the ricochet. The Burnley player controlled, looked up and kicked a long diagonal ball that bypassed practically our entire team. Because Robinson and Tete were so far up on the wings but ultimately not threatening, the ball to Vydra allowed him to run past Andersen and they bungled it into the net. Boom. Game over.

My point in all this is not to laud huffball or re-litigate the shortcomings of Parkerball or complain about efforts and loans. It's that although we were wholly unlike our last two relegations (i.e. we were actually stable this season), we were again just so easy to beat. Sure, there are countless other layers of this onion that you are more than welcome to peel away. But to me, that is the rub of this season.

 

I’m pretty much in agreement with everything written here, post mortem. Shad has said and done everything right since he bought the club from Al-Fayed except one thing: appointing and keeping Tony (aka Billy Beane, III) as Director of Football. I don’t know much about the family dynamics of the Pakistani equivalent of a real life Horatio Alger story, but I’m gonna assume it’s similar enough to the American version whereby “normal” dads don’t fire their coworker sons for performance issues.

 

I really can't argue with any of the points made previously about Fulham's demise. I guess with many relegated teams, it comes down to a couple of matches or even a couple touches/ref decisions that could have turned the tide. After new years I had confidence we could survive but that was all but eroded by the end of Feb.

Just gutted. My profile pic was from our last premiership game before we went down versus Newcastle who trounced us 4 nil. Coincidently that is who we play for our last match this season. Think the daughter and I will skip this one (well we really don't have choice tho.) Depression until the fall and then the excitement of potential promotion will return. COYW!

 

Well said. It was really tough to watch us this season in the final 3rd of the pitch. Extremely frustrating. Every friend of mine who support other clubs in the EPL pointed this out.