Fulham at Leeds United

Fulham travels to Elland Road to face Leeds United on Saturday. The match will be at 10am EDT and will be shown on Peacock.

Leeds will be full of confidence that they can get their first Premier League win in a generation after nearly drawing at Liverpool and beating Fulham 3-0 back in June. @daddude7 was right that Leeds was lucky against Liverpool that every opportunity seemed to convert to a goal, so we shouldn't think that Leeds are a title contender. Leeds' big summer signing, Rodrigo, came on as a sub in the Liverpool match, but word is he still may not be ready to start. The rest of the squad will likely have a lot of familiar faces from last season including the three who scored against Fulham last time out.

On the other hand, Fulham could look very different from last week's lineup as Scott Parker looks to work in some new signings and find those players from last year who can step up. There are no injury concerns for Fulham, so Parker should have freedom to get his best lineup out there. This isn't a must-win, yet, for Fulham but it will be a much better gauge of the squad's prospects than the opening match against Arsenal.

 

I just learned that Peacock is not available on Roku (after I signed up for the free trial) which is what both of the TV's in my household operate under. So I guess I'll be watching via the computer and likely canceling after. I spend too much time in front of this computer for work. Don't really want to look at it on Weekend mornings.

 

In the last 31 Premier League matches played between two newly promoted clubs, the away side has managed to win just twice (20 L, 9 D). Both of those wins came at relegated Norwich last year. Here’s hoping Leeds finish bottom or else this isn’t a great omen.

The home side has won the last 3 between FFC and Leeds.

On the plus side, Leeds haven’t beaten Fulham in back to back league matches since 2003.

While interesting trends, it doesn’t necessarily make them relevant. Leeds’ quick, aggressive attack makes me nervous against a Fulham d that I have major doubts about. Hopefully the new boys and having Mitro back starting make the difference.

Any word on any cb’s coming in, btw?

 

Very curious how Fulham will line up. In an interview, Parker mentioned having seen Aina play as one of a back three at Torino. I wonder if that's what he's planning: three across the back + two wingbacks to help us change shape with changes in possession. It might be easier to swing with the personnel we have than the standard static 4 in the back until we get another quality CB.

Any bets on the starting 11?

 

Don’t be too quick to cancel.
https://www.cnet.com/google-amp/new...p-roku-what-is-nbc-comcast-deal-universal-tv/

I know that there aren’t any injury concerns but I get the feeling that there are some fitness concerns. Will Mitro start after going 90 minutes on Wednesday? I hope there will be a mix of some of the newer guys and some of the old guard. I also hope the defense doesn’t fall prey to the quick attacks that downed them after the restart.

 

We dropped Rodak too soon. Doesn't feel right. I like Anguissa starting rather than Cairney. Surprised to see Cavaleiro over either Kebano or Knockaert. Why isn't Aina in the 18? Would prefer to see him over Reid. Other than that, no other arguments with the lineup.

Dang, I have a meeting at 10. Will have to watch on replay later.

 

Stopped paying attention at 4-1, good fight back to almost snatch a point. Fairly obvious our needs, what will TK do?

 

Highlights:


I watched the whole thing and Fulham generally looked terrible. Things were better in the last 10 minutes of the first half after Mitrovic's penalty. Fulham also looked better after the subs came on when Leeds scored their fourth. But still, on a whole, terrible.

I was fine with the changes made although the new guys didn't impress me much.

• Areola didn't look like much of an improvement over Rodak. His distribution wasn't great and he seemed a little slow to react to the third goal - although it still would have been a tough save.
• Tete was probably the best of the new faces. He was able to get an assist but was a mixed bag on defense. On the first goal I don't know if the defensive configuration for the corner was just poorly constructed or if Tete was out of position, but no one even looked at Costa until he had the ball. Meanwhile Tete was on the opposite side of the box next to Bryan leaving Costa loads of space to get off his shot.
• Lemina looked lost and nearly gifted Leeds a fifth goal when he got caught in possession just outside Fulham's box.

The returning players didn't look good either. Cavaliero kept losing the ball after holding on to it too long to begin with. Kamara was the invisible man - I can barely remember anything from him. Odoi was probably a better choice than Reem given Leeds' speed, and I appreciated how he moved into open space to put pressure on Leeds, but he's still not strong enough on defense and he wasted Fulham's last push forward by firing a shot over the bar. Anguissa had some great defensive moments and a nice assist, but he also single-handedly killed Fulham counter attacks with poorly timed back passes or failing to run forward when needed.

Both penalties seemed soft, so I guess things evened out there.

The most concerning thing is Fulham's tactics. Players weren't on the same page leading to numerous turnovers. Fulham sometimes had 3 or 4 guys standing across on the Leeds back line waiting for a ball that would never come because there was no one left playing in the midfield. Things got better after Reid and Kebano came on and Fulham started linking up going forward, but at that point it was 4-1. That kind of play needed to be there from the beginning.

I'd like to not be so negative just two games in, but I don't see anything in Fulham's future but more misery.

 

The hope is Scott Parker learns from this. For most of the first half we had no particular strategy. Too reactive. I would disagree that we looked "terrible" in the second half. We gave up goals and our defensive shape was indeed terrible at times (CBs, please!), but there was more thought about the combination play, and Anguissa actually started to create things and move the play forward. My esteemed predecessor might disagree when I say Anguissa was one of the best players on the field, and our best player alongside Mitro. The rest of the team didn't step up to his level.

What I saw in the first half--the static ball watching and the lack of off-the-ball work--reminded me of the Arsenal game. For large stretches of the second half, though, our effort was much better, we pressed further up, and we had some bite in the tackle. If we continue this progress, we will start getting results.

We do need to sort out our defensive four. Is any of our starting defenders today ready for the Prem? Tete may get there, although he wasn't at the level today. Maybe Hector. Joe Bryan is a fighter and dangerous going forward, but a defensive liability. Odoi, likewise. But we have the personnel we have, and I'm curious how Parker will solve this problem if we do not get immediate reinforcements. One piece of good luck was that Le Marchand wasn't on the bench and a sub couldn't make our defense even worse.

 

About the only good things today were the comeback, two goals from Mitro and a goal from a sub, BCR. Other than that, not much to look forward to yet. I almost think we would have been better off using more the holdovers from last season than trotting out wholesale changes, especially on defense, against an offensively oriented side. We needed to be more competitive against a fellow newly promoted side, even away, and weren’t. We knew it was gonna be harsh out of the gate, but 7 goals conceded in the first two is a little tough to stomach. Seems like I said this sometime in the not too distant past, but we gotta start focusing the bulk of training on defending right now. Three goals should get you at least a point in this league. When it doesn’t, it’s time to dig in and defend as if your life depends on it.

 

Without substantial changes in tactics and personnel, this version of the club will be relegated and I can say that after two matches.
I don’t have anything positive to say about that performance yesterday (or the first one for that matter, but I didnt expect anything) - I missed the 20 Minutes of play in the second half wherein Fulham scored 2, so I only observed confusing and disjointed football.
Figure it out, Whites. COYW!!

 

I won't disagree with you on this one. I was frustrated with Anguissa's decision making at points, but there were other times that he looked very good.