Fulham vs West Brom 1/16

Well we're back to league play which, in reality, is the most important competition to Fulham at this point in the season.

I really hope that when the physio report comes out it doesn't say that Steed and Boa 'picked up injuries during training this week and won't be available'. If you catch my drift...

 

Yeah... but surely management knows that's NOW a transparent ploy and they wouldnt...

Oh, wait. Never mind, forgot .. you can never underestimate management intelligence.
:twisted:

 

With all of the matches that were played during the holiday period, it seems almost like Fulham is on a break now. No game for 8 days!!! Well, I just hope the Fulham team that came out strong against Palace comes out against the Baggies. I hope players like Andy Cole do not try to do anything too stupid or out of control to avenge the last time these two teams got together. Cole was red carded and there was bad blood on both sides. Fulham must win this match. Three points are badly needed on Sunday. I wonder what the story with Clarke will be? Substitute I am guessing. No Jensen...still. Hopefully there are no sales or imminent sales that keep Boa and Malbranque out of action as Mike was referring to in his post.

 

Fulham better give us a win, which in then would be an early Birthday present to me!!!!!

 

Fulham will win, this match should be a gimme.

 

A fulham fan should never talk like that!!! :shock:

Andy Cole will not be playing in this match, he has aquired 5 yellows and is suspended...here are the players that are available...

You pick the line up out of:
Van der Sar, Crossley, Volz, Bocanegra, Fontaine, Malbranque, Knight, Rehman, Pembridge, Diop, Legwinski, McBride, John, Hammond, Rosenior, Clark, Boa Morte.

I'm interested in seeing what everybody comes up with... :!:

 

ANDY COLE IS SUSPENDED I THINK IF COLEMAN PLAYS TWO STRIKERS UP FRONT INSTEAD OF 1 THAN WE SHOULD BE OK. COLEMAN NEEDS TO HAMMOND A BIT MORE HE IS A TERRIFIC PLAYER.

 

I THINK COLEMAN SHOULD PLAY THIS TEAM

VAN DER SAR
VOLZ KNIGHT REHMAN BOCANEGRA

MALBRANQUE DIOP LEGWINSKI BOA MORTE

JOHN HAMMOND

 

According to the official site, Radz is ready to go thus I think that he will start instead of Hammond and it'll either be John or McBride up front with him...

 

John up front I think with Radz. This match is a must win and so I see it 3-1 for us.

 

Sorry, too young upfront IMO - we Need Coley's clear and experienced head up front, I would like to see The King on the bench though as he was electric last time he played. Give him another chance Cookie :shock:

 

I would like to see Cole as well, but he is suspended for this one after getting his 5th yellow. We may have to go young tomorrow. I trust Cookie and the players he chooses. I can't wait for the match tomorrow.

 

What a big win for Fulham today. I thought we were lethargic most of the day but Papa saved us. It is three points and now we are 9 ahead of the relegation zone. In addition, that is two league wins in a row. I just hope we can keep the momentum going against Watford on Wednesday in the FA Cup replay!! Great win!!!

 

Credit also needs to be given to Eddy Van Der Sar. He made a few nice saves on blunders by both Zat and Zesh at the back. Those two were shaky all day. Sounds like Ben Thatcher and Mark Fish are gonna be coming in soon to help. We will see how those two do. All in all, Eddy was my man of the match.

 

well..I have a comment/observation to make.

background elements:

Supposedly Ed is one of the best keepers in Europe, but "the Fulham D line is one of the worst in the Prem".

Ed is apparently seriously negotiating to stay at Fulham.

We dont seem to have a problem holding most teams to 0 or 1.

So... is Ed THAT great.. or just lucky... or does he like playing with a buncha bums so HE looks better?

Or is there something I dont get here... after all VdS Is the boss of the defense, i would think.

 

Well, Eddy saved us today. The back line has been consistently inconsistent. I think overall Eddy has had an average year, he has a high ceiling and when I say that I mean he has the potential to be much better than most goalies.
I would like to think he is gonna stay at Fulham. That would be nice for us. I think he is the back bone to the defense and with some consistent play from the back four, we could have a solid defense like we did last season!

 

WBA

The only good thing was we got three points, we certainly did not deserve them. It was without a doubt the worse game of football(soccer) i have seen all year by any teams. I have been a suporter of CC, but starting with one player up front against the worse team in the league shows one thing not only to the fans but also the other team, CC was scared to lose, and the sorry thing about it, it did not work, WBA were by far the better team in the first half, it was much more even in the second but even then they had good chances. Why oh why was McBride not playing from the start, the moment he came on he won three headers and had the vision to pass the ball to a white shirt, Collins John might be a future star, but he was not at the races today and should have been hooked long before he was. With us fighting for points we have to be more aggressive, yes we did not have Cole up front and Steed got hurt but we were woeful in the middle of the park, Lee clark as been a good servant and he made some moves and runs but lets face reality he is not what he was and even then he was middle of the road, pembridge had an assist but I expect any professional midfielder to be able to hit a deadball into the box, other than that he was horrible, and i keep hearing about how bad boca is, yes he is not your most skilful of left backs but how many times was he exposed today because Pembridge and the rest of the midfield could not get back in time, he would have to commit inside so many times because his help had not come back. The idea of playing 5 across the park is to saturate the midfield CC it did not work today at all, the big fella who scored the goal was walking in the first half and if Campbell and Earnshaw had taken their chances we would have been out of it. Obviously we cannot play Rehman and Knight at the back together, well we can but they must be told to talk, and you can blame Knight on that stupid back pass but thats the keepers responsiblity if he did shout then Knight was wrong, but apart from that our back line was awful, and if we had been playing a premier team today it would have been one of Fulhams biggest defeats, I say premier team because neither of those teams was today. Where we do we go from here, well buying another so so player is not going to cut it, we need a creative midfielder, we need a player who is going to create that chance every now and then, if you watched like I did today up until the goal you did not think we had a chance of getting one, we did not create hardly anything, and lets face it against the worse team in the division. If Fulham are serious to be a premier club we need to get a goalscorer whose not over the hill a midfielder and a central defender to at least take charge at the back, Knight needs a mentor on the field and quick, but I fear for the future because if you surf the papers in the uk for stories how many players have you heard that are rumored to be coming to us, its all one way traffic, and after today i could not blame any of them for leaving or not coming. One interesting point I heard Sir Bobby Robson was there today, he of course played for both teams, I wonder which one he is going to help????????

 

Yeah, I was also wondering why we were using the 4-5-1 today against a paltry Baggie team. One thing I have noticed about Fulham this season this their lack of fitness. It seems as though players are simply not in shape and are walking around. I do not know why this is the case, but to me it is vert evident.
We did get three points and that is wonderful, I do not understand why Fulham always plays down to the competition. I mean whether it be the first Palace match, the Blackburn match, this match, the first West Brom match or a few others, Fulham never seems to play well against struggling squads, while on the other hand, they usually at least play with heart and intensity against the better teams like Manchester United, Newcastle and even Arsenal, at least in the first Gunner match.
It bothers me that the team does not come to play consistently and that they are not in shape. I have to place the heart of the blame on the coaching staff. It is the responsibility of the staff to get the squad in shape and in prime playing condition. It is also the job of the staff to motivate the team and have them mentally prepared. I just do not understand why the same abysmal things keep happening for Fulham.
I am happy that they got the three points, but we need to fix these problems or we are gonna be in trouble in the next few months. It was nice to get this win and the fact that we did not play well and found a way to pull it out shows something. But, we have some problems and I do not know how to fix them.
Winning can help a lot, so I just hope we can win on Wednesday against Watford and then next Saturday against Brum. Winning cures all problems. Let's hope the winning continues.

 

I absolutely agree that VDS was the man today. Zat looked extremely tentative and appeared to have no confidence at all in the first half. He was better in the second but still looked like a deer in the headlights at times. Zesh's mistakes were more those of inexperience. VDS was there everytime to bail them out and keep Fulham in the game. Once again the midfield did not provide much help to the defense. For most of the game they weren't winning balls in the middle of the field and they gave the WBA offense too much room. Had it not been for VDS, WBA would have scored in the 1st half and it would have been 0 points instead of three. Great timing on Diop's part for 3 huge points - in spite of a shaky game otherwise he is MOM #2.

 

Thanks, guys.

This sort of stuff cant really be discussed on "wind-em-up.net" and it needs talked about.

I'm seeing the same level of INFORMED, albeit sometimes emotional discussion, about the Crew on its boards. And that team has much the same problem.

What we are talking about here is the imperfect world of professional sports management...and, once we separate the radical view chaff, we see the elements that REALLY need discussion.

The entire football world knows that Fulham is weak at left back. Carlos wasn't, is not, and probably never will be the best fit at that position.. he would have to have better foot skills and be a "quicker" player to become noteworthy.

But EVdS certainly knows that, doesnt he? Why wouldnt a superior keeper flee from the continual threat that porous Boca supposedly allows?
I'm thinking that it aint ALL that cut and dried.. that Boca, despite sometimes lookiing the clown, ALSO must make some plays out of his Arse! YOu addressed that above... Most teams flank attack from the right. And CB is the only thing in the way.
Maybe getting Thatcher in and sticking him Left would allow a trial of Boca in Center and then we could see what he might REALLY do.

McBride and his "inconsistency" is the other angle we Yanks are interested in. Every Crew fan with any knowledge was happy to see him out of Columbus... not because he wasnt producing, (Whether Brian played in a game or not had little effect on the outcome of a game, once the other teams figured out we couldnt get the ball to him anyway) but because the Crew didnt have the skills and form to use him at the same level as Arena's National team does.

At the time BRian left, the Crew Midfield absolutely SUCKED and had for a while.
And now we see, mostly, the same thing with his current club... though the skills of the prefered mid starters are much better, the performance or "form' isnt..

The fascination with the 4-5-1 is certainly understandable... with everything clicking, it makes for entertaining and exciting football. And Saha was, time and place, perfect for that. But to think that level of accomplishment would continue indefinitely is naive.
The Crew ALSO had a Saha type, Jeff Cunningham. But we ALSO didnt have the support he needed to gell into a pure attack "One-Up" and that led to frustration all the way round.

The answer, though, will be to continue to fiddle with the lineup... and maybe that will work. For the Crew, it took us a long way last season... bottom of the table to the top and some exciting games... but crashing out when it counted, in the playoffs, showing that glaring deficiencies remain.

The same is true of Fulham. Those who call for a new manager are, in my opinion, quite credible. But whether that would help is not for me to say. ...Because that is not at all certain.