Fulham v Wisla Krakow

Been scouring the world wide waste of time for any news on Dembele's injury status. Anyone heard of anything on that?

Also, was wondering who was going to make the traveling sqad to Poland. Any 411 would be greatly appreciated. In the meantime...GO CARDS!

 

I'd expect to see a mix of regulars and bench players. I don't know much about Wisla Krakow, but I have to believe Fulham have the quality in reserve to achieve a result. I hope Dempsey doesn't play in this one, along with maybe Murphy and/or Hangeland, in order to give them some rest.

COYW!!!

 

Would like to see Demps on the bench to come on as a sub if needed. Same with Murphy. Give young lads like Frei a start.

 

Hope to see Briggs as well as Frei who was either sick or injured last weekend. Not sure how Krakow is doing in their domestic league, but Odense beat them there 3-1 (they also lost to Twente away 4-1). Good guys to get their second Europa League away game in a row.

 

Polish fans are great and Legia Warsawa fans were great against a team from Israel the atmosphere was great and that banner they had was great but also a bit wrong. Wisla also has great fans and it will be great to be at that game but for us we can watch it on tv or computer

 

Looks like Clint, Bobby Z. and the captain stayed in London. Good call. Still like our chances with the younger guys getting some experience. Looks like Moussa's knock isn't too bad, as he made the trip.

COYW!

 

Wisla have lost to Odense and Twente by scores of 1-3 and 1-4 so in theory we should be capable of the win even without Bobby, Demps and Cap'n Murphy. But like Bosniaba said Polish fans are great so ya never know. I guess Senderos is still injured also.

Really looking forward to seeing Frei and Pajamies.

The Wisla coach has told people not to get hysterical, "Fulham is not Man United or Chelsea". Yeah we arent, and were proud of it. Go Whites.

 

Ooh, locker room bulletin board material. I love it! Maybe our boys will get a little more fired up for this one. Smack talk from a Polish coach. I love it!

 

0-0 at the half. Mousa Dembele with a straight Red. According to the BBC announcers and the FFC twitter feed he touched Nunez on the shoulder and he (Nunez) went down holding his face. Sounds like a great acting job and the ref only saw him laying on the ground and never saw what hapened.

 

Delayed start to the second half. The flood lights went out!!!

According to the BBC the Fulham fans are chhanting "You don't know what you are doing"

 

Wow, down a man Not going to be easy now.

 

It's about 25 min since half time started and the lights just came back up. The home side players are taking the field and still waiting on the Fulham players

 

What do you do now? Sit back, play defensively or go for it?

 

Looks like Wisla's plan was to shoot from outside the 18 yard box and hope we dont pressure them enough. It's working

 

Bummer :cry:

 

It's funny, I tend to romanticize the good old days of hanging in the FUSA chatroom while watching Fulham on dodgy internet streams. That must have been one heck of a chatroom, b/c suffering these streams is maddening. I don't think I saw more than a 5 minute stretch at any point in the match w/o the feed going to crap and having to refresh. And the popups... :evil:

It's a shame to drop the points against a side of Wisla's quality, but with the int'l break and fixture congestion, I can't fault Jol for playing a side largely made up of the 2nd team. And credit Wisla for coming out and attacking the way they did. They took the fight to us. Unfortunately, it was a fight we didn't look particularly up for. That was made worse midway through the 1st half when referee Martin Hansson sent Dembele off on a straight red following one of the worst dives I've seen in a while, by Wisla's Nunez. You may remember ol' Martin from his signature faux pas, the Henry handball to beat Ireland.

From there we played a very defensive match, often compacting to 8 men in the box and daring Wisla to shoot from 18 yds or more. They made Schwarzer work on a few of them, and ultimately converted in the 2nd half on a cracking strike by Biton. Wisla's Chavez spent the evening challenging Fulham players by running through them from behind. Hansson finally gave him his 2nd yellow to send him off, but could have done so much sooner in the match on any of a number of challenges. We made a desperate push late, but it came to naught.

My only real gripe with Jol in this one is how he handled the formation after Dembele's sending off. He moved AJ to the wing and played Sa alone up top. Given Sa's average (at best) speed and his clumsiness, I'd have preferred to see Frei or Kasami come on and put an in form AJ up top. He eventually did take Sa off in the 2nd half, but due to a hamstring injury, not tactics.

I thought the supporters from both sides were in good voice. Wisla's were loud and active despite a fairly empty stadium, and the Fulham faithful broke through the din a few times as well.

Again, while I hate to see us fail to get a result in this one, it was a fairly irrelevant match in terms of advancing. We likely won't win the group now, but we sit 2nd on pts in the table at the midway point and we get the 2 worst teams at the Cottage in the 2nd half.

 

:evil: Haven't seen the red card yet, but if it is as described than this is the crap that has to be eliminated from the game. My friends who don't watch soccer point to the flopping and rolling around as one of the reasons they don't.

Here is a simple solution; If the replays show that this was indeed a dive then rescind the red against Dembele and further ban the Wisla @ss for 3 matches. Of course this WILL never happen, but w/technology and cries to curtail this BS why not??

EDIT; Just read Ag's post and I can guess I shouldn't be surprised that the same idiot that was on the pitch the night of the Ireland-France fiasco was in Krakow.

 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEO6e9CXJOM[/youtube]

Take a look. Complete and utter horse&@**!!
If they don't over-turn the Red... :x