Fulham v Villa

The time to feel relieved is over. As well as Fulham played on Wednesday, Sunday's clash with the Villans is an absolute must win if there ever was one. Bent is not available for us due to the loan agreement, which totally sucks. Villa's best defender left their game early on Wednsesday with an injury so hopefully he wont feature against us. Come On Fulham!!!

Anyone know when Brede is back?

 

I agree w/HD's scoreline and Mo's assessment that this is a MUST win. Villa has been excellent in the league away from home (3 wins, 3 draws from 7 matches) and just won at Southampton the other night. I thought Brede was close for Spurs, so hope the extra few days will mean he is a go.

 

COYW!!!!

That is all.

 

Friends with a pretty avid Villa supporter here, so I want to beat them in the worst way. I think we will. 2-1 sounds good to me, too.

 

We finally meet a team as allergic to possessing the ball as we are. Possibly worse. So who wins a fight between 2 counter punchers? With their pace, I think Villa are the more dangerous team on the counter. They've also got the better and more mobile defense. That said, as mentioned above, Vlaar is likely out and Benteke hasn't gotten on track since the injury.

Meanwhile, on the back of the Spurs game, we want the result and we need the result. Winning two road games on the bounce, nevermind in one week, is very tough for a mid-table team. They may not be as up for it, especially if we can hit them early. Hopefully we'll look to possess the ball a little more in this one and not let it turn into a track meet. I think we'll see a bit of both and come away with a 3-2 win.

I don't want to think about what happens if we don't with @ Everton and v City next on the schedule.

 

HD, horrible news about Brede, hope he can get his back issues alleviated because that is a very scary injury. The club will have to assess his chances of coming back a month from now and determine if they have to bring someone in as cover.

Did find the highlights from that Villa match within a Great Escape vid. The first glimmer of hope with the return of Bullard and McBride. Starting at the 2:00 mark all goals in the match attributed to Fulham players (Hughes scored an OG for Villa). Digger with the tying goal, and Bullard with a trademark free kick and a tumble celebration. bscene-drinkingbuddies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe4POYvM_VY

 

:banana-guitar: :banana-dance: :banana-linedance: That is all.

 

Well... I missed it. But that turnaround in team performance was not exactly hard to predict. So I did, even from the sidewalk outside the stadium venue, so to speak. Short term effect only, to be sure. But essential.
Good for Fulham!

 

Signs of life? Or a change at the top rebound? Time will tell, but this is encouraging, especially compared to where we were before Jol's dismissal. Seems obvious to me that he was the largest part of the problem, no? At least we're watchable again. Looking forward to attending the Norwich match in April again.

Who's next?

COME ON YOU WHITES!

 

From watching it seemed that we spent the majority of time in the attacking end, not sure if we actually did or it seemed that way as we had the lead. I know we had the edge in possession. Also seemed to get the bounces and had our men where the ball ended up. Not like a lot of times when we loose/are loosing. Things seemed to go right, as they often do for a team that has a winning mentality. I was unable to watch the Spurs match, but from what I read this match seemed to be a continuation of that one. If we can keep playing like we did these last two matches things should turn around.

 

I won't argue that there's some short term "new manager bounce" effect going on. But I like how Meulensteen has adjusted our personnel and tactics to matchup to our opponents and how he's made adjustments in-game. I also like that he's active in the technical area the entire match and has Hill coming up and giving him input as well. Those things are sustainable and lead me to believe this isn't a fluke, but indicative of what we'll see going forward.

I was skeptical about the number of defensive mids going in, but it was clearly the right approach. Villa had struggled to maintain possession all season, so by breaking up the attack in the midfield, we prevented them from linking up with their most dangerous players (Agbonlahor, Weimann, Benteke) and relegated them to hoofing long balls for the most part. Because we did that successfully, we didn't need a #10 to link to the forwards as we won the ball high enough up the pitch that Parker and Karagounis could link with Berbatov and the wings and Sidwell was able to do what he does best, play as a box-to-box cm. I liked the change after halftime too. At 2-0, you'd expect us to go safe and sag back and Villa have been a 2nd half team scoring-wise. If we invite them onto us and they pick up a goal, it's a different match. But by coming out of the half and pressing even higher, we never let them get a foothold and we took the fight out of them. I'd felt going in that AV's goal for the week was to take 3 pts, so having already secured them, if we could jump out early they'd be more likely to feel satisfied and not push. That seemed to be the case.

It was great to see us finally win possession and outshoot an opponent. Once again, I thought there were good performances across the board. Dejagah would be the one player I thought struggled, but he was still instrumental in the Sidwell goal and had a solid match overall. His crosses are brutal. We don't appear to have a sub for him at the moment.

MotM - For me, it's co-MotM's. Sidwell and Berbatov were essential. I don't know if we score a goal w/o Berbatov despite his only goal coming from the penalty spot. He played a big role in both goals and in the buildup on a number of our chances. Sidwell got us on the board early with that tantalizing, spinning chip across the goal line and reclaimed the top spot among Fulham goal scorers for the season. He was huge in breaking up the AV attack in the midfield and reminded me a bit of Mike Singletary in the 2nd half as he made a number of crunching (yet legal) tackles that seemed to take the starch out of the Villa midfielders.

I don't expect we'll get anything from the next two matches. I'm just curious to see how we approach them and the effort we put in. It's essential that we don't lose that fighting spirit b/c there are winnable matches on the other side of that stretch.

 

You didnt trademark the name?

 

No thanks. I'm perfectly content posting what, when and if I want within the forums of this board.

Besides, I doubt most of your readers would view me as a suitable replacement. I don't write with the metaphors, humor and references to music and English pop culture that they've come to expect from you and the VFST.

 

HD, I know the season has been a downer, and frankly who wants to do a 'View" when anything past 'we sucked' was filler, but now that MJ is gone it's time to jump back in and contribute a View or 2 (might want to skip the away match at Everton though :roll: ). Don't feel obligated to do it all the time, watch a game and if you feel inclined, hop on the computer. I vote for Heather using her discretion and putting a great post (ie. Barry and Matt's) and putting it on the front page.

The Villa performance is worth a reboot. Here are the highlights from the offal, doesn't get old watching that Berba pass to Kaca.

http://www.fulhamfc.com/media-centre/video

 

A well deserved boost.