Fulham at Newcastle

Saturday Fulham makes the long trip up to St. James' Park to face Newcastle. The match starts at 10am EST on Peacock.

Is Fulham unstoppable?! Well after back to back 5-0 wins it feels that way, but away at Newcastle will certainly be a bigger challenge than Nottingham Forest or West Ham at Craven Cottage. As it has been pointed out Newcastle did suffer an exhausting and disheartening defeat mid-week. It seemed like they were going on to the knockout round, but two second half goals from Milan sent them packing without even a Europa League slot. It is hard to say how they will react. Will they come still licking their literal and figurative wounds or will they pull themselves together with a new singular focus on climbing the Premier League table? St. James' has been a fortress for Newcastle in the Premier League with eight wins and just one loss (vs. Liverpool in August) at home this season, so despite the mid-week home loss they will feel good about their chances against Fulham.

Unlike Newcastle who will be without Nick Pope, Kieran Trippier, Harvey Barnes, Sven Botman, Jacob Murphy, Matt Targett and Joe Willock, Fulham will come in with a very healthy squad. Only Ream and Traore will be unavailable. Diop will be back in the squad but since the pairing of Tosin and Bassey has yet to give up a goal I'm sure he'll just be on the bench. Under the banner of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" I would expect the lineup to be unchanged from the past two matches.

I'm pretty sure Fulham's run of 5-0 wins will come to an end, but might they be able to get a point? Fulham nearly got a point at Liverpool and did earn a point at Arsenal so getting from Newcastle is not out of the question.

 

I thank you folks like @MicahMan who provide insightful previews for the matches. On the other hand, I’m just here to say that I’m looking forward to a hard fought and (hopefully) close match. Unless, of course, Fulham can pull off another blowout victory.

Come on Fulham!

 

Kinda blocked out the pink highlighter kits from my mind..yikes.. Raul’s red card lunacy has gotten me away from the unis

PS Got that he was pissed from getting the elbow, but you can’t lose the plot. Feeling really bad for those traveling supporters that have to watch us play w/10
men for 70+ min.

 

That was one of the dumbest plays I’ve seen on a pitch in quite awhile. Leaving your feet to go after a non- critical pass in the corner of the sideline and midfield stripes?
Yikes.
Got through 25 minutes, let’s see if we can kill off the remaining 45. Not likely, but you don’t fold your tent and park the bus.

 

What the hell was Raul thinking? Well, I know what he was thinking - he was pissed nothing happened from the elbow he took to the face, but that was a terrible way to react. Fulham was playing well to that point and they hung tough after going down to 10, so it was a good display from everyone not from Mexico. The biggest concern now is that Fulham will be without Raul for the next couple matches that I had expected Fulham to get points from. That was a really unfortunate way for Fulham's good run since the international break to end.

 

Someone give Raul some hockey skates after that flying hip check.

One of the most bonheaded plays I’ve seen in a long, long time.

 

This is gonna sound oversimplified and downright silly, but I could almost tell we weren’t mentally prepared as soon as the match started. It’s such a little thing, but it got my attention immediately and made me go “uh-oh” in my brain.
Pereira, after faking out half the players on both teams with a fake opening kickoff, then booted the ball back to Tosin, who side footed a no look grasscutter sideways toward Diop…except Diop wasn’t standing where Tosin aimed the ball. Issa chased it down without too much difficulty. It was a blatantly, sloppy, lazy start to an away match that I’m sure the striped shirts took serious note of and were emboldened by, We had some promising moments but just didn’t seem quite as nifty as we’ve been the past two weeks. Then the obvious frustration fueled flying hip check to the face of Sean Longstaff not 30 seconds after re-entering the pitch from receiving treatment for an unpunished elbow to the chin from Jamaal Lascelles.
Although we created some decent scoring chances before and after the senseless red, I never felt like we would kill off 70+ minutes without conceding. Kept my fingers crossed, which worked until halftime.
Inevitably they got a fortuitous carom off Jedi’s shin that put it on a plate for Miley at point blank range. Whatever slight glimmer remained was vaporized when Almiron squirted free for an even easier tap into an open net. The coup de grace applied by our old buddy Dan Burn seemed cruelly inevitable.
Would we have gotten a result were it not for Jimenez’s temporary insanity? Dunno, but the effort was there, if not the execution. And now a once promising December is suddenly iffy. And the real pisser is that the Mexican was finally starting to do what we hired him to do, score bloody goals. Now he’ll miss the next two matches. He screwed himself and his teammates, big time.
A hugely disappointing momentum killer.
Now we’ll see what we’re really made of.

 

By the way, does anybody know why Bassey wasn’t dressed today? The only players I heard Marco say were out were Ream and Traore. I didn’t hear why Harry started in place of Willian.

 

He reportedly had an illness.

Willian had come off early in the previous match so it may have been a maintenance decision for him - and Wilson had played well when he came on as a sub.

Really good point you made @jumpkutz about the opening. That caused me to tense up too, but I put it off on Diop getting on the pitch for the first time in a while. It very well could have been a bigger issue with focus.

 

All I know is in baseball and most sports in general, if it ain’t broke…
….don’t fix it. Or in the immortal words of Crash Davis, never (eff) with a winning streak.

 

I'm apparently not as angry with Jimenez as some of you. Was it stupid and reckless? Yep. Was it malicious or was there intent to injure? I.E. Was it red card worthy? I don't think so. Players jump into each other multiple times every game. Obviously the referees thought it was worse than the norm though, and that's all that matters. (Side note: I find it interesting that 3 of the 4 straight reds given this weekend were initially yellows that were overturned by the VAR.)

Given the circumstances, I thought the team did well. They held Newcastle at bay for the most part until a couple of unfortunate bounces put the ball right on the foot of one of their players. As @jumpkutz said, nobody expected Fulham to hold on for 70+ minutes. The hope now is that they put this result in the rearview and move on to Everton in the cup and Burnley at the Cottage.

 

When I saw what Jimenez did, I thought he had expected Longstaff to play the ball over him and tried to intercept, but did it in a truly clumsy way, perhaps because he was still angry. If the ref had shown a straight red without VAR, I would have thought it was harsh. The yellow was certainly not a "clear and obvious" error.

I feel that the EPL is having more trouble with VAR than the other leagues I watch (Serie A, La Liga, Bundesliga, MLS). Controversies do happen elsewhere, but they're not nearly as frequent (I do not have data--that's simply my impression). I think that's due to the Prem VAR officials re-refereeing the borderline calls rather than stick to the "clear and obvious" standard.