Fulham vs. Bournemouth

The highly anticipated return of Scott Parker to SW6 is upon us, highly anticipated, in part, due to their proximity to us at the top of the table. From what little I’ve seen of the Cherries this season, two things stand out to me: 1) They don’t appear to be nearly as deliberate or stubborn in playing out from the back as we were under Parker, and 2) they’ve got some scary big, fast and good attackers. They are coming into this one on a bit of a hiccup in form (kind of like us) since the last international break, unexpectedly dropping points at home to Derby Co. whilst drawing at Milwall and at home against Coventry. It’s fair to expect improved performances and extra media attention due to the hype that naturally occurs when #1 meets #2 in sports. But, with 20 out of 46 matches having been played and 78 points on the table, this match is more about psyche and ego than a turning point in the season, i.e., who’s the king of the hill in this corner of the soccer empire? We really need to get our mojo back on both sides of the ball. We’ve got plenty of guys who can score besides Mitro that need to get going. Neeskens, Wilson, Bobby, Carvalho, even Cairney and Onomah, are capable of more than they’ve shown in recent outings. Rodak’s having a superb season between the sticks, we just need to make sure he doesn’t see too many shots he can’t do anything about. Time to get back to the side we saw at the beginning of the season and between the 2nd and 3rd int’l breaks. They’re in there somewhere.

 

Forgot to mention it’s the Friday night/afternoon match. So extra eyeballs on us that would normally be focused elsewhere.

 

The match will be on ESPN+ for the 2:45pm EST kickoff on Friday.

As @jumpkutz mentioned, Bournemouth is coming into this from a bit of a rough patch. After going 15 matches without losing, they have now lost two of their past five and have only won once in that stretch. Prior to the most recent five matches, Bournemouth had a five game win streak. In those five wins they scored 10 goals. In the most recent five games they also scored 10 goals. Their offensive output hasn't changed - their struggles are due to a drop in defensive performance. Half of their 16 goals conceded this season have come in the past five matches.

They may have trouble turning things around with their key defensive midfielder Jefferson Lerma serving a red-card suspension and their starting CB pair from their most recent clean sheets, Gary Cahill and Lloyd Kelly, likely out due to injuries. Parker has not been very honest about Cahill's status, but he said he doesn't expect any injury returns from the Coventry match which he missed. With Cahill out Bournemouth attempted to play with a back three with Lerma on the back line. Who knows what formation we'll see with so much uncertainty on defense.

Fulham should be well positioned to take advantage of this instability on the Bournemouth back line. Silva should be able to pick his optimal starting lineup with no injury concerns and hopefully everyone recovered from the recent illness that may have impacted their performances. I really want Fulham to put Bournemouth to the sword and make a huge statement, but after recent disappointing draws I'll take a win in any form.

 

I hope our home supporters give Parker the applause he deserves. His football/tactics weren’t to everyone’s taste, but he got the team promoted when they weren’t one of the 3 best teams. That said he and Mitro were done co-existing, and let’s hope we hear the Mitro is on Fire chant.

EDIT: 1-1 Final. Woulda, Coulda….However, it sure feels better to be scoring in the 84th to get a point (we deserved at least that much) then giving up the tying goal late on. Still top of the table COYW

 

I enjoyed the game. I thought we deserved all 3, but that's life. Nice to still be sitting top of the table.

 

Yeah, no real complaints here aside from the lack of net rippling shots. Random musings…

It was so fun watching Kebano tear up the left side of the pitch all night.

I understand how Mitrovic can’t get anything accomplished with defenders bear hugging him all match. I don’t understand how the referee doesn’t do anything about it.

Cairney looked great off the bench.

Fulham was hurt by the lack of VAR again. They also should have at least a couple more goals but it was another one of those nights where the lack of goals was not from a lack of trying.

 

Here are the highlights:


I'm in 100% agreement with the prior comments. It was a really enjoyable match to watch - much more fun than the prior two draws that felt like a bit of a slog. This one was back and forth with some great moments. I couldn't believe Bournemouth's Cook acting like a salmon swimming upstream and throwing his body in front of two consecutive shots - great defensive commitment to foil Fulham. My favorite moment was when Tosin imitated Solanke's archer pantomime after he scored - that had me laughing out loud.

I think Fulham was the better team in this one, but they didn't get the breaks on any potential penalty calls and Bournemouth took advantage of Fulham not being awake at the start of the half. They didn't show it in the highlights, but Cahill blocked a shot from going in with his arm a questionable distance from his body and then Wilson was clearly clipped in the box by Solanke without being awarded a penalty in either case.

I thought "That's Parkerball!" when he made a defensive substitution with 34 minutes to play and a one goal lead. Silva's Fulham is a lot more fun, now lets just get a win again.

 

I did something I rarely do. I rewatched the whole thing from the beginning. All previous comments are spot on. Additional observations...Reed, Bryan and Seri were MIA. The only reason we lost is because we didn't prepare adequately for the fact that Scott Parker knew us too well. If not for the set play off of the second half kickoff, I don't know that they score at all. His defensive tactics were simple: don't let Mitro beat you, make somebody else do it, if they can. It almost worked, save another sublime mini-cross from Mr. Thomas Cairney onto the unlikely head of Tosin, who was still up from a corner. The rest of the league is gonna watch this tape over and over to see how they mugged Mitro and got away with it. Another night, another ref, maybe not as effective. Parker also defended us effectively, based on our weaknesses which, ironically, he helped implement. Pressed us with a high line at times, then dropped off and let us pass the ball harmlessly around the middle of the pitch with little to no attacking intent.
I'm gonna go out on a limb (OK, it's not THAT big a limb) and predict we'll clean their clock in the return encounter at Dean Court in April.