Fulham @ Burnley

As @timmyg pointed out on the Everton thread; this is a massive week w/Burnley & SheffU. Haven’t won at Burnley since 1951.... Should be a cagey, evenly played match. COYW!!!!

 

After seeing how well Fulham played against Everton I had two thoughts:

1. Having a week between matches allowed Fulham to have the stamina to press Everton for 80 minutes.
2. Will Fulham have a big enough reservoir of stamina for Burnley with only 2 days of rest between matches?

I went back and looked at the days between PL matches for Fulham so far this season. In Fulham's three wins they had 8 days off before West Brom, 7 days off before Leicester, and 7 days off before Everton. The other time they had a full 7 days off (that wasn't an international break) was before facing Liverpool and Fulham should have won that one too. For matches where Fulham only had 2 days of rest they've had 4 draws and 1 loss. Over the season, for Fulham's losses they had an average of 5 days of rest, for the draws 6 days of rest, and the wins 7 days of rest.

All this makes me pessimistic we'll see a repeat of the Fulham's performance from Everton.

Fulham and Burnley are both pretty solid on defense, but struggled to score - especially early on in the season. Burnley has put up 3 goals in each of their past two wins (Aston Villa and Crystal Palace). That's 1/3rd of their goals for the whole season in those two matches, so they have been more dangerous in recent weeks than in the months prior. As @SoCalJoe said, a cagey, evenly played match is likely but there is a better chance to see some goals now than when the match was originally scheduled back in the Fall.

 

I'm going to do my best to take the afternoon off and catch it live at a local watering hole.

 

@MicahMan strikes at the heart of the matter. I really hope no one skipped his ice bath after Everton. Burnley is playing well; there is no reason to think that it won't be at least as hard a game as on Sunday, and they have a day of rest on us. I expect Parker to rotate some folks, but he can only do so much. I hope Maja is okay--he seemed to be favoring a hamstring toward the end on Sunday.

My prediction: Fulham wins 2-1. (I'll be right eventually.)

 

HT 0-0, 2nd best so far, Burnley seems to have 14 guys when defending. Will be curious to see if Aina comes off, he looked hurt those last couple minutes.

EDIT: Aina was well enough to chest the ball in!! COYW

EDIT II: Great dummy & sloppy D by Rodriguez led to their tying goal, but after that thought we were the better side clearly, RLC gets a ton of flack from Fulham supporters , and when he hesitated and didn’t finish a perfect cross by Cav you can see why. Let’s be honest, 4 points from these two matches given our history at those venues is pretty damn impressive...now beat Sheff United and it’ll ge a great week!

 

I thought Aina scored with his belly button. A few inches lower, and it would have been a great billiards move.

Burnley was always going to be difficult. Shefd Utd won't be easy, either. We win 2-1; I'll be right eventually.

 

The highlights:


After watching the replay, I felt at the half that Fulham could really benefit from Anguissa. Lemina wasn't playing well at all and Anguissa's ball handling abilities would possibly pull in additional Burnley defenders that could open up space for others. So I was happy that early in the second half Parker made the change to bring him in. Usually Parker would have waited another 20 minutes. It ended up to not make much of a difference in the final result, but at least he pulled the trigger earlier.

Once again I'm incredibly frustrated with Loftus-Cheek. He puts himself into good positions, but he is so tentative that he kills every opportunity that comes his way. I really wish Cairney were healthy so that Fulham could try something different, but for now I think RLC is still the best option - I just want him to be more aggressive.

Fulham was lucky to go into the half at 0-0, they were lucky to score, but in the end I felt a draw was a fair result given how much better they played in the second half.

 

Like Fulham I did some of what I hoped for today. Got the afternoon off, but had a kid with a cough who needed to stay home from preschool, so no sports bar for me.

Thought Fulham played well enough for a point. Reed busted hid butt. Maja had some good moments. Thought all the subs were overall good. Still think we need the next two to stay up. COYW!!!!

 

Good news! GJ sounds back to normal. Someone get the poor guy a wind screen for his mic though!

 

Burnley did to us what, basically, we did to Everton. Except we were not only still in it, but ahead. The defensive breakdown that led to the equalizer was, I feel, an experienced vs. youth matchup that we lost. Rodriguez schooled Adarabioyo on the old hook and go so badly that he had no chance to recover. Rodriguez and Barnes still had plenty to do, but it didn't look that difficult, did it?
I wondered silently to myself during the first half what Micah wondered loudly and accurately in what proved to be a spot on ascertainment of the likely outcome before the match. We didn't look at all like the team that ran Everton into the ground at Goodison Park Sunday, and MM's facts definitely show why. I don't know what the answer to that is, or even if Parker or anyone else in the backroom recognizes it, much less knows how to mitigate it. The result? Another winnable match goes into the draw column for another measly point when we need three for any chance at a miracle.
Anybody know what the record for most draws in a season is? We've got to be threatening it. The next team goal should be consecutive league wins. If we can get something going, we might at least make it interesting.

 

In the Premier League era there are three teams that finished with 17 draws: Newcastle 2003-04, Aston Villa in 2006-07 and 2011-12, and Sunderland 2014-15. All finished outside the relegation zone and all had more draws than losses (something Fulham can't say right now)

If Fulham wants to beat that record they are going to need to get past Brighton and Hove since they have one more draw this season - 11 to Fulham's 10.