Fulham vs Villa

Both sides playing European football today, both sides rested starters. What do you think? I'd be happy with a draw as we always seem to have issues winning there.

1-1

Hopefully Greening gets a chance to play a bit.

BTW, the match will air delayed on FSC at 8pm EDT Sunday. Doubt I'll wait all day. I'll probably find a stream.

I won't give out a starting XI until I know whether or not Murph will be available.

 

Villa out of Europa on away goals.

 

No Gera.....

Fulham:

Schwarzer, Zuberbuhler, Stockdale,

Paintsil, Stoor, Kelly, Hughes, Hangeland, Baird, Konchesky, Smalling,

Murphy, Etuhu, Riise, Seol, Greening, Duff, Andranik,

Nevland, Kamara, Zamora, Dempsey.



Fulham's Clint Dempsey is expected to overcome an ankle injury in time to make the trip.

Manager Roy Hodgson will give late fitness tests to Danny Murphy (calf), Paul Konchesky (knee) and Bobby Zamora (Achilles) while Andrew Johnson (shoulder), Simon Davies (foot) and Toni Kallio (Achilles) are out.

Jonathan Greening could make his debut but fellow new signing Kagisho Dikgacoi, who completed a move from South African club Golden Arrows on Thursday, is still lacking match fitness.

 

I didn't know Zamora, Konchesky, and Dempsey are questionable. I'm even less confident about this one than I was before! Villa should be playing like they are on fire if only to salvage some pride from crashing out of Europe.

 

Maybe, but substitute Nev for BZ, I'll take that. Sub Kelly for PK, I'll take that risk. Gera for Dempsey... well, two out of three ain't bad.

I'll take our chances for a result. This team isn't Sanchez's Sad Sacks anymore.

 

We all know that those guys are going to be in the starting line up. I just hope, we move Dempsey to the right and sit Gera. Then throw Dio up front with Zamora. That'll leave Nevland to come on late to get the equalizer (2-2). I think, we'll get one point, even though points are hard to come by for us at Villa.

 

I hate being negative, but...

I think we lose this one 2-1 as we score early, but Villa feel the heat and respond with 2 second half goals that we have no answer for

 

Blasphemer! Heretic!

 

YEah, but a realist. the 'vibes' arent right for a Fulham win. And Villa will do it for their fans. LUCK would produce a point for FFC.

 

AV
1 Brad Friedel (G)
47 Ciaran Clark (CD-L)
24 Carlos Jimenez Cuellar (CD-R)
21 Nicky Shorey (LB)
23 Habib Beye (RB)
19 Stiliyan Petrov (CM-L)
4 Steve Sidwell (CM-R)
20 Nigel Reo-Coker (AM)
7 Ashley Young (LM)
8 James Milner (RM)
11 Gabriel Agbonlahor (ST)

18 Emile Heskey (SUB)
10 John Carew (SUB)
25 Stephen Warnock (SUB)
22 Brad Guzan (SUB)
26 Craig Gardner (SUB)
16 Fabian Delph (SUB)
12 Marc Albrighton (SUB)

FFC
1 Mark Schwarzer (G)
5 Brede Hangeland (CD-L)
18 Aaron Hughes (CD-R)
3 Paul Konchesky (LB)
4 John Pantsil (RB)
27 Jonathan Greening (CM-L)
20 Dickson Etuhu (CM-R)
16 Damien Duff (LM)
23 Clint Dempsey (RM)
15 Diomansy Kamara (CF-L)
10 Erik Nevland (CF-R)

6 Chris Baird (SUB)
11 Zoltan Gera (SUB)
21 Eddie Johnson (SUB)
19 Pascal Zuberbühler (SUB)
26 Chris Smalling (SUB)
2 Stephen Kelly (SUB)
17 Bjorn Riise (SUB)

 

Pretty blah performance.

I did a pretty job of avoiding web sites telling the score so I could watch the game tonight like it was live, but the two minutes that I had ABC on for the LLWS and they actually flashed the score on the bottom line.

Damn you ABC, damn you.

 

Well, that was unimpressive. Duff hasn't done anything worthwhile since his appearance as a sub against Perm. For a guy who's billed as a great passer, Greening's passing was terrible, and he gave the ball away for Agbonlahor's goal. Kamara's touch on the ball was awful. I feel bad singling those three out though because other than Hangeland and Schwarzer nobody did much right today.

 

That was one oof the worst offensive displays I've ever seen of ANY team in ANY game I've ever watched. YOU MIGHT THINK THAT's an overreaction, but can you tell me any point where we looked anywhere near scoring? Hell, tell me a point where we looked like creating chances. I'll go one further, tell me a point where we got into the box in any kind of threatening way.


I can hear it now, "we're without Murphy,AJ,Zamora etc", yeah well what does that say about the depth we supposedly have? It tells me that if we're without some players we're going to be lucky to get anything this season.


If we don't add 2 or even 3 more players before the end of the window, we're going to be in trouble.Let's face it last season was because we had almost no injuries. That isn't going to happen again and I'm not to high on watching Eddie Johnson coming off the bench.

 

Ignore the all caps on the "you might think" sentence. Damn phone.

 

That was a painful match to sit through. Fulham was flat from the start. In particular I thought Etuhu and Greening had a pretty terrible match. Passing was off and they were caught in possession more times than I care to remember. Also, did we even register a shot on goal?

Hoping for some improvement. If not, I'll be developing an ulcer soon enough.

 

Give Duff and Greening time. Duff hustled after a lot of 50 50s in the game, and against Chelski too. He'll come around. Greening got beat for the second goal, but you have to give him a chance to get his feet under him. After Pantsil showed that he can score a goal, I thought he upped his game the rest of the way out. Hangeland and Schwarzer, as you said, were very good.

Didn't help that Villa played a very good game. Cuellar was a beast, and he carried the kid Clark all game too.