Fulham at Huddersfield

Yep, the reality that we lack the quality to execute this style of play against this level of competition is starting to set in. Based on the last 2 years, this is about the time of the season where Fulham have started to find their stride, so hopefully? No better opponent to get it started against.

 

We owned these guys before they earned promotion. Hopefully the guys that are still around remember how we did that and spread the news, and performance hints, to continue that recent success.

 

With Newcastle finally getting a win (vs. Watford) it means that if there is a loser in Monday's match, that team will be at the bottom of the Premier League. The other extreme is that if Fulham wins 12-0 then they would move up 5 spots to 14th place. Sadly, I think it is more likely that we'll see Huddersfield double their season total of 4 goals.

EDIT: Also likely that we'll see Huddersfield score their first home goal of the season, although I would prefer to see our first shutout.

 

Micah hit on it. Not only is this a 6 pointer, but it’s a 4 placer (16th or 20th). It’s about staying w/the group that will battle it out for survival (Spam sitting on 11 points in 13th) Is the losing manager next on Jump’s Manager Sacking thread?

Since this is the first time I’ve seen us promoted, didn’t really take in account the problems that effect team dynamics. The high priced guys didn’t put in the blood, sweat, and tears of the last 2 years. The finger pointing, distrust, and lack of sacrificing for each other is obvious. It doesn’t matter who is the gaffer, it’s up to the players to come together.

 

As suspected by some, Ream takes a seat tonight. Otherwise the same starting XI as against Citeh:

Rico
Fosu-Mensah, Odoi, LeMarchand, Sessegnon
Cairney, Anguissa, Seri,
Vietto, Mitrovic, Schurrle

Subs: Bettinelli, Christie, Mawson, Chambers, Ream, McDonald, Johansen

Let's get 3 points fellas.

 

COYW !

 

If Huddersfield wasn’t almost equally inept, that was a 4 or 5 nil loss easily. Almost got lucky with the Schurrle goal that was rightly called offside (zero excuse for Mitro not getting his butt back onside).

All in all a dreadful, lifeless, and clueless performance. When you can’t fire the entire team, someone has to go.

 

It’s truly puzzling how an owner can turn things around so quickly (relatively speaking), then, almost overnight, cock it up so badly that we will likely end up right back where we were.
What happened?
I think we overreacted to promotion by bringing in so many new players that it destroyed the culture of the team we had built. Should we have upgraded the squad to meet the challenge of the Premier League? Of course. Did we go about it the right way? The evidence to date strongly suggests we did not. I don’t pretend to know the difference between a Championship player and a Premier League player. But I remain unconvinced that any of the players we brought in, outside of MAYBE Schurrle, were worthy of displacing any of the men that defeated Aston Villa at Wembley in May. Personnel change is inevitable from season to season, so I’m under no illusions that people weren’t going to leave. But you can’t change half the team and expect better results, especially if the new guys aren’t ready for prime time. It certainly appears that we overvalued and overpaid for pretty much every new player. And that leads me to believe that Tony and/or whoever replaced Craig Kline made most of these decisions rather than Slav. Whatever the scenario, we are in deep doodoo, and I’m not even sure a major overhaul in January will save us from relegation. I don’t think changing managers will help that much at this point, although it seems inevitable. If we do change the gaffer, we’re looking at someone like Steve Bruce, who may still have time to turn it around, but it’ll be ugly and boring. Would you rather go down in flames or do whatever’s necessary to stay up? That may be a dumb question, but it’s where we’re at. The wheels have come off, and the new question is, do we have time to get them back on and keep them there? And who stays and who goes to make that happen? I don’t know that much about how the club is run these days, but it appears to me the owner’s son is the single most likely person responsible for this roller coaster ride. If he is or isn’t, does a father sack his son? This downhill grade might be a long one. I hope not.

 

The players have talent, I'm pretty sure they would be good in another situation. But we basically have zero players outside of Schurrle, Mawson and Mitro with premier league experience. And Mitro doesn't have much experience and even less success. I think thats a big part of the problem.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

Enjoyed commiserating with Joe in the chat room today. Everything else about the match was poo. I don’t think there is a quick fix and I don’t believe Slav has much rope left to hang himself.

If the players brought in over the summer don’t suit his style then the obvious answer is to change styles but I don’t see that happening with Slav.

 

Two quick thoughts:

1) When you allow the former worst team (Cardiff) in the league to double their goals scored in a single match and then follow that up two weeks later by allowing the worst team (Huddersfield) to get their first win and first goal at home, while sinking to the bottom of the table to take over the spot of the worst team - well it is pretty clear that you stink at playing football. The only hope at this point is to change the manager to see if someone else can make something out of this assortment of players. I hate to see Jokanovic go after all that he did the past few seasons, and he may not even deserve all of the blame for the current situation, but I don't see any other options. The team has failed to meet even the minimum requirements to demonstrate they can stay up. Doing nothing at this point is marking time until relegation.

2) This season is not over for Fulham. Not even close. Fulham still has six teams within three points. If someone can figure out how to get this squad to start earning points there is plenty of time to recover.

 

A time for change is needed.

Fulham aren't comically bad a la Jol/Rene/Felix (though yes we've shipped in like 500 goals so far). We just stink.

These past 3 matches were a perfect litmus for the club and everyone failed miserably. There's the Cardiff debacle highlighted by MicahMan. The utter pantsing by Bournemouth, who yes are good but that was embarrassing.

And now yesterday, against an opponent that had kept 1 clean sheet this season (a 0-0 draw vs Cardiff in August), Fulham manage 1 shot on target.

The whole system needs a reboot: our defense is all over the place, we're constantly outnumbered in midfield, we only play give-go passing through the middle of the park, we have no width, we are not playing to anyone's strengths (when is the last time someone crossed it to Mitro? Do we even have anyone who can cross it?), and we have zero depth in our forwards to attempt a different look.

Is some of that on the new players? Absolutely. For all the clamoring over last years squad, don't forget that we were maxed out on loans. Half of our team wasn't technically ours. So we had to buy a new squad in early August, and were clearly not prepared for the start of the season. I imagine things would have settled by now, but Slavisa hasn't helped matters much.

Get an interim in for Liverpool because we're going to lose 5-0 anyway, and find a new permanent manager for the November break and the massive game against Southampton immediately thereafter.

 

I was thinking this the other day as well. I know Mitro is decent with his hold-up play, but I feel like he's spent the last four or five matches with his back to goal. What's frustrated me more has also been his tendency to (IMO) focus more on posting up and leaning into the defender than on controlling the ball. How many times has he backed into the defender so much that he ends up falling on the ground when the defender moves laterally?

 

Well, this is officially going to be a long season now. It seems that the efforts to fix the defense have broken the offense.

Someone mentioned Premier League experience, specifically the lack thereof. I'm starting to think that the biggest lack of Premier League experience is at the coaching position. Joka is talented and employs a very exciting style of play and has been very successful given the right level of talent. However, the lack of knowledge or experience with the level and speed of play in the Premier League has gotten us to this point. I believe that Joka had some say in the transfers (mainly because he wasn't bitching as he had done in the past) and that the acquisitions fit his mold. I just don't believe that he realized the gap in talent between the Fulham squad and the rest of the Premier League. Fulham cannot expect to play the same style as the top teams and win. They aren't going to beat them at their own game.