Fulham @ Spuds

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have a league match TOMORROW. Our victory at Accrington Stanley broke our string of three losses and, perhaps, with a little luck our away hoo-doo.

Spuds looked less than scintillating against Leeds -- nice little striker, that Beckford lad -- and will either be pissed or disheartened. We, on the other hand, should be confident, but limping and confused.

We generaly suck at WHL, but -- hey, that's why they got to play 'em.


------------ Schwarzer the Stanley Assist Man -----------------

Kelly -------- Hughes --------- Asleep at the Wheel Hangeland --- Kallio

Duff -------- Murph ------------ Baird ---------- Gera

---------------- Nevland ---- AJ ---------------------

[Hope to see Kamara and Davies feature off the bench]

Spuds 2 Fulham 1

AND IT'S LIVE ON FSC!

 

ouch, terri!

Recap:

Schwarzer -- had another nightmare. After Riise gave up on a ball, Modric stabbed it over and Schwarzer charged out and whiffed at it. Bouncy bouncy goal. Tha Big Aussie gives away another.

Hughes -- interesting choice at right back. Played very well defensively [although he gave up the free kick that resulted in their 2nd goal]. but Roy likes his FBs to attack, and Aaron doesn't have an attacking bone in his body.

Hangeland -- did a fine job, and even made a guest appearance just outside Tottenham's penalty area late in the match. A good rebound from his 45 minute nap in the first half on Saturday.

Smalling -- not a single foot wrong in the first half, and a solid performance throughout. With him harrassing Crouch, we won every second ball for most of the match. I can see why Sir Alex is willing to pay 8m quid for him.

Baird -- GREAT match at left back [LEFT back? :shock: ] but why was he the option for our two most promising 2nd half free kicks? Botched them both.

Riise -- Can we PLEASE stop hearing about how good this guy looks and why it's a mystery known only to Roy that he hasn't feature in the Prem? He was easily the worst player on the pitch, couldn't make a single decent cross, flat out quit on a 50-50 ball that wound up in our net for the first goal and headed in their second. Nice to see Roy sub him out ... but I'd have done it 65 minutes earlier.

Dicgachoi -- Wow! what a very good match. Won several balls and looked strong and confident as defensive mid. Snatched at our best chance for a goal, but overall I think he proved he's probably a step ahead of Greening at the moment.

Duff -- Strong early, but had no energy or pace in the 2nd half. I don't think we'll see him twice in four days again, he just flat ran out of gas.

Gera -- good box-to-box performance for him, but the overall service to Zamora hurt his ability to help much. Liked his interception on what looked like a buildup to a sure Tottenham goal.

Zamora -- looked strong, but his timing was off. He was offsides 5 or 6 times in the first 20 minutes, killing just about every attacking possibility we had. He'll get better.

Davies & Kamara -- It's just too cool to be able to type those names. Kamara looked like himself immediately. Davies came on and disappeared, but then played a Simon Davies-ish ball into their penalty area very late for what should have been a decent shot on goal but was muffed. Both players looked fit, so it's nice to know that they are options.

Elm -- his major contribution was winning a free kick that Murphy sent into a Spud's defenders shin. [Please Simon, come back and take the free kicks!] He's taller and thinnker than another recent "jeez is that all that's left at the end of our bench," but I've watched him twice this week and am starting to wonder if the Finnish translation of David Elm is Shefki Kuci.

Overall, while everyone thought that our biggest loss was our attackers -- of Zamora, Johnson, Kamara, and Dempsey Bobby Z is the healthiest :shock: :shock: -- it's obvious that we're fekked without our starting FBs. We really are going to miss Paintsil and Konchesky, and we might be missing the latter for the rest of the season. They are so essential to firing our attacks, and they allow Duff and Dempsey to get inside and cause trouble. Roy's decision to play a central defender and a defensive mid at the FB positions rather than Kallio and Kelly says TONS about how much we're going to miss them JP & PK.

We didn't mount a single coherent attack today. We had periods in the 20 minutes leading up to their first goal where we kicked the ball around and looked cool and fluid doing it, but inevitably, somebody -- usually Murphy or Riise -- would meekly give up possession rather than make that killer pass. The game cried out for the kind of stunning creativity that we associate with Simon Davies and Clint Dempsey. We didn't see any of that today, and that hurts. How bad was it? Gomes hurt his shoulder about 20 minutes into the match, and we never forced him to dive or leap ONCE in the 70 minutes that followed. :x

Overall, a stunningly crap display by our guys.

About Spurs? I don't think you'll see them in the top 6, never mind the top four when the season is over. Defoe is right on time for his annual mid-season funk and pout session, Robbie Keane is clearly past it, Dawson [and isn't it amazing that he was once a dead certainty for this World Cup with England?] is probably the best of their central defenders and he's really not any better than average. They have Modric, Palacios, and Kranchar, but Huddlestone hasn't improved under Harry, nor has Bentley or any other midfielder save Lennon. Without him, Spurs had to depend on two howling defensive mistakes to beat a team that is so poor it couldn't test a one-armed goalkeeper. Meanwhile the 3rd division side who embarrassed them this past weekend lost 3-0 today to a 3rd division opponent.

When it's all over and done, I believe Spurs will finish behind The Undead, United, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool, and Everton -- and maybe even Birmingham City. I think we'll be lucky to finish 10th.

On to the weekend!