Fulham at Charlton Athletic

Instead of the brutal Saturday-Tuesday night turnaround, it's the slightly more manageable Friday night-Wednesday night turnaround. And, it's on the other side of London which, in this case, is still an hour by land any way you slice it. Hopefully the extra time will allow the lads to be fresher than they otherwise might have been. Charlton are 19th, five points clear of Barnsley in the top relegation spot. They've lost four out of their last five, including an FA Cup loss at home to West Brom, whom they drew six days later at The Valley 2-2. Preston spotted them a goal at Deepdale Saturday, then scored two unanswered to win. Cavalleiro and Mitro scored at the Cottage in a 2-2 draw in October, and Cordova-Reid nearly won it for us with two excellent chances near the end. Betts was our keeper, and he would lose his starting spot after the next match at Stoke,
a 2-0 loss. He's only started once since then, a 3-nil drubbing at Hull City. Rodak missed that one due to the red card he picked up at Middlesbrough the previous match.
We should win this match. Our form has improved a lot since Michael Hector made his debut against Villa. The table turning away win at Hull City was our first since the day after Thanksgiving at Swansea, We've got five road wins in the league this season, and we're taking the measure of teams we didn't play well against the first time through the schedule. The lads appear to play like they feel they can score without Mitro and confident they can win on the road. Since losing three straight at the beginning of December, we're 5-1-1, with the only real dud being the 2-1 loss at home to Reading. All the other performances, including the 2-1 win against Villa at home in the FA Cup, have been solid, with Knockaert in particular stepping up his game. I believe we'll keep it going at The Valley Wednesday night.

 

I don't think we'll make the same kind of unbeaten run that we did two seasons ago, but we're not coming back from as far down as we did then, either. As long as we're past one of them by May 2nd, I don't care. Only being four points out in January? That's one thing. Being four points out in April? Quite another. Who knows Hatter? Maybe we will catch them next month and sprint away with the whole dang thing! Wouldn't that be something? Not sure my vascular system can hold up through another round of playoffs.

 

Fulham is missing Mitrovic's finishing but created plenty of chances without him and have looked far more solid in the back with the addition of Hector. All Fulham can do is keep winning and putting pressure on the teams ahead of them and try to create some separation from the pack of teams that remain in contention. To do that I think finishing up front is going to be the key to a sustained run of wins.

 

Charlton have only earned 15 points from their last 22 matches (after earning 14 points in the first 6 matches). But this should still be a close one. 23 of Charlton's 28 Championship matches have been decided by one goal or less.

Sounds like Mitrovic, Kamara, Reed, and Le Marchand are all still out.

 

0-0 Final. I’m sure Charlton is happy w/a point in their quest of
staying up. Managing only 2 out of 6 possible points against an inferior squad could come back to haunt.

 

It always does, SCJ, it always does....but hey, it's a road point so COYW!

 

Some highlights (I think we were playing Charlton, but they aren't featured in these ):


This game was difficult for me to watch. In the first half the video feed kept dropping so it was literally difficult to watch and I missed most of the good opportunities that Fulham had. In the second half the video didn't drop out, but maybe it should have. Both teams looked terrible. It really seemed like the players we had out there just haven't had enough time together - Arter passed the ball to McDonald when he was looking the other direction, Cairney passed to empty patches of grass, and worst of all Ream kept passing to the other team. Fortunately Charlton couldn't capitalize on those mistakes. On the plus side Hector looks to be a great addition to the team and has been instrumental in this series of clean sheets. Hopefully this spell of injuries doesn't continue too long and/or the remaining players can figure out how to work better as a team.

Supposedly he's injured, but you never know what the real story is with him.

Without looking, take a guess as to how many more points ahead Fulham is vs the 2017-18 season. It turns out it is just 1 point - which surprised me. So things are about even in points and about the same in the distance to 2nd. However, this doesn't mean that Fulham necessarily needs to go on a run even better than in 2018 to get automatic promotion. Fulham finished with one of the all time highest point totals for a third place team because Cardiff also finished so strong. Even if Fulham can't recreate the magic of 2018, a slightly weaker but still strong finish might be enough to get automatic promotion, statistically speaking.

 

We're not the only ones struggling against Charlton. Charlton have not lost to any team currently in the top 5. They have 2 wins, 5 draws, and 3 remaining matches. If they could play that way vs the bottom of the table, there would an entirely different dialogue surrounding the team.

Like @HatterDon though, I won't complain (too much) about a clean sheet and point on the road on a short week.

 

Don't have much to say about this game beyond: at least we only conceded 1 SoT? That's...something?

Don: Scott said in a pre-match video or tweet or something that AK is still injured. Our club has never been great at revealing injuries but this year is a new low in terms of communication/transparency (did you know Kebano is out for awhile? It's true!)

Micah: that's a good stat. I dont know if the Championship is "bad" this year, or just very even (there isnt a doormat per se like in prior years), but unless Leeds or WBA, or even us or Brentford, go on an absolute tear I think we're on pace one of the lower total points Winner/Top 2 in recentish memory.

 

Here's a link with just a few more seconds of highlights, which doesn't shed a whole lot of light on the overall performance, but... I think this was a match begging that extra bit of quality that is the bull striker known as Aleksandar Mitrovic. Some very nice buildup and exceptional passes from Odoi (half the length of the pitch, right onto Cairney's streaking boot) and Cairney to set up two quality shots for Bobby and Joe Bryan. I hadn't heard about Kamara being injured. Was wondering why he wasn't in there for Mitro. Gotta be something brewing, one would think. Charlton appeared to play us pretty soft on defense, not pressing high up the pitch, not pressing anywhere, really. We were passing the ball around on their side of half pitch line relatively free and unencumbered in the highlights.
Been kind of a weird season, although we've won as many as 1st place West Brom. We've competed well against they and Leeds, drawing the former and beating the latter. But, results against the rest of the league are inconsistent. Thrashing Milwall (currently 8th) 4-nil, losing to Barnsley (currently 22nd) 1-nil. Riding Mitro's hat trick to beat last place Luton Town at home 3-2, then conceding 3 to them in a draw at Kenilworth Road. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to our results relative to our opponents' relative place in the table. We're making the hard ones look somewhat easier, but not making the easy ones automatic. Such is life in the Championship, I suppose. Still in it, though.
Onward!