Fulham vs West Brom 1/16

In talking about Cookie or any other manager or coach in any sport I have a belief that you should not make the players on your team play a certain style, rather you should evaluatre each team differently based on their sttrengths and weaknesses.
What I am saying is that while the 4-5-1 worked with Saha it is not working with this group. Cole is not effective on his own and needs support up front. Fulham does not really have anyone to play up front on his own.
This being said, Cookie needs to see this and adjust to what works best. The midfield is definitely a trouble spot. A lot of people like to thnk Papa is a world class midfielder, but he is average at best in my book. He and other midfielders cannot get back on defense and also do not service balls up to the forwards for any kind of offense. Papa can shoot unbelievably, but he and others need to strive to become more well rounded players.
To me, the 4-5-1 is not gonna work with this group at all and it is up to Cookie and Keano to figure this out and make a change. We should be attacking against the lowly Baggies. They have the worst offense and defense in the league. We should have made them play our stlye, rather than sittting back as we did and playing their stlye. It was frustrating.
Regardless, I think it is obvious that changes in personnel and tactics need to be addressed and talked about with this club.
I have faith in this club and the team that things will work out for us. We are gonna take it to Watford on Wednesday with an attacking 4-4-2. If anything, I hope today's match was the end of the 4-5-1 with this group.

 

VDS was great in this match. And he had to be because the central defense played like a Conference team.The outside defenders did well. But, the central defense made some mistakes and not just giving away a Corner when they didnt have to. I mean trying to get the ball to VDS when he is 5 feet away and Earnshaw is right there waiting for that.Letting Earnshaw run all over the place when he wanted to. Kevin Campbell played liek a world class player. Thats how bad the defense was. I mean Campbell is a good player but, He played like he should be on the all world team.There is a couple of places where Fulham need help. One is Left Back. Boca has done ok but, if you get a Left Back then you can move Boca into the Central defense. 2 is Central Defender. If Boca can move into the Central defense and Fulham can get another class defender then the Back 4 will do much better than they have all year.3. is a forward. John is not good enough to be the only forward. Cole is a good player but, is 33. Mcbride another good player but, is 32. Fulham just cant finish good scoring chances. They need a Forward that will score 15-20 goals a year in the Premiership.


As for why Coleman played a 4-5-1. Well he shouldnt have. I mean here you play the worst defense in the Premiership and played a 4-5-1. He could of played a 4-3-3 and might of scored 3 or 4 goals. Also Coleman should of started Mcbride. If your gonna play a 4-5-1 and Cole is suspended Mcbride would be the best player to be that only forward.When he came into the match he did really well.

The midfield. they played a good match. Diop did really well. Boa was one of the best players for both teams. Created good chances for John and almost scoring. Malbranque started the match ok. He did create a good scoring chance but, it took a good save to stop it from being a goal.The midfield is starting to play much much better.

 

I am not sure I agree with this. Considering Fulham had 5 across in midfield and were unable to do much offensively or defensively makes me think they did not have a good game.
Every pass Fulham tries is long and over the top. There is a certain reason why Fulham plays long ball, because the midfield is lacking. I think a healthy Jensen will help out a lot. We need a good distributor of the ball for the forwards and we also need a midfielder or two that are capable of tracking back and helping in defense.
We will see what happens.

 

Totally agree with post about 4-5-1 how on earth you can play that with firstly what is still a very inexperienced player up top in Collins John, and against a team of the caliber of WBA, if he plays this same line up against Watford I will be most upset, when you play teams below you and teams that have not kept a clean sheet once all year and who have won one game how can you play the most defensive line up ever devised apart from 1 -10. You could play it with Saha because he had pace and skill and was cunning, if you watched him saturday against Liverpool he was outstanding he gave the Liverpool defence all sorts of problems, and if the headline grabbing Rooney had been a bit less selfish saha would have probably scored. As for the midfield yes i agree boa had a good game, but we need players creating for him he cannot do it all, and a big part of playing midfield especially in the English premier is you have to defend, and some of our guys did not do that very well Sunday, poor old Boca was left exposed more than once, and therefore at to commit inside to cover so leaving his man unmarked. As for Mcbride I saw him play for the Crew in Columbus once a good friend of mine who i got into soccer is a seaon ticket holder and goes to all the games, we went up there once and saw the game, but with all due respect to the Crew McBride did not have the caliber of players to work with at the crew than he does now, he is very good at winning headers and is a very clever player when he gets the ball and for me makes the perfect foil for Cole and yesterday should have been Boa up front. If they give Mcbride a run with Cole and get the midfield sorted out and we can create some quality chances we could start to climb up the table.

 

I was looking at the table and if we can beat Brum this weekend, we have a good chance to move into 13th place. With Portsmouth playing Chelsea, they will likely lose and even Newcastle plays Arsenal so we could inch closer to them. While we are not playing great now, it is amazing what a few wins will do for your position in the table.

 

Thanks, John.... that was my point... and i think most, if not all, agree on that.

Strangely enough; LAST season, after trading McBride, the Crew acquired and started a midfield in which he COULD have been effective... oh welll


BTW... try using double "enter" to break up the paragraph.