Fulham @ Hull City START YOUR ENGINES!!

Left side will be the problem this season. Thanks to Hodgson demanding 80 billion players on the right side, we're going to be lop-sided in attack. Once Hull figured out that Gera was absolute shit on the left we started to suck. If Hodgson doesn't bring in help on that side, we're fucked.



Oh and let's give a hand to our defense. How fucking brilliant were they? Konchesky was awesome and Hangeland looked like he had absolutely no problems with King and Geovanni. Our defense was a real joy to watch.



New season,Same shit.

 

How anybody could actually like what they saw is completely fucking amazing. I mean truly amazing. I don't know a person who watched this game that actually thought we looked anywhere near our best. We got beat BY HULL CITY! They had players that many supporters couldn't even tell you where they're supposed to be playing. I know everybody likes to look at the positives, but there was no positives after Hull scored. None at all.

 

did Hull deserve to win? YES. You could just feel that they were gonna get the 2nd, and i dot think anybody thought we would sneak a 2nd. Tigers were the better team on the day.

We havent talked a lot about Zamora up top, he was AWFUL. 1st touch was POOR, and he couldn't knock down long balls with any consistency, and I hope we don't have to play 1 up top again.

Seol, wow, I think we were all surprised. Not just the goal, but he connected well and looked like he belonged much more than I ever remember.

Roy will get them going, no panic needd.

 

Caught it on delay.

Pantsil looks like a good pickup at RB and showed some tenacity out there.

Hull did a good job of shutting down Murphy and Bullard after the first goal. This effectively canceled out any creative flow and dismembered Fulham's attack.

I'm not sure if Zamora was that bad or if he was simply starved of quality service.

Another CB to pair with Hangeland is an immediate need. I've never been to keen on Hughes and he appeared very shaky today.

Hull came to play and Fulham just showed up.

 

I didn't see any of today's game, but it's been obvious for many months that Hughes isn't good enough in the air to play center back in the Premier League.

 

Charlie Nicholas

http://www.skysports.com/video/0,20285, ... 06,00.html

Charlie Nicholas explains the game well today. I don't always agree with this guy, but he gives a really fair explanation of what happened today. He says Fulham played well.

... also, about Aaron Hughes. His problem is that he's short. He's only 5'11' or so.

I'm hopeful Fulham is still after a quality CB. The problem is there aren't many available in the market. Even just someone to compete against Hughes would be fine by me.

He's adequate, but someone a little bit better would be nice. I don't think Hughes was that big of a problem today though.

 

Fulham only played well for 20 minutes. I'm starting to doubt if you guys saw the last 70 minutes.

 

RE: Charlie Nicholas

I just finished watching the game and while we did control the ball well in the first half, we lost our MOJO in the 2nd.

Hull deserved to win the match as they created more REAL scoring opportunities and played with energy and confidence and kept the Fulham defense under a little pressure, too much I thought. I liked their strikers King and the guy Don mentioned who scored a great first goal for them, Giovanni. King seems like he has some flair and may end up helping them alot if he can stay healthy, he is clearly very athletic, it seemed he made both Schwarzer and Brede a little nervous.

It would have been nice to get 3 points but we didn't deserve it TODAY after failing to score more in the first half.

Thanks for the link Lyle, it was good summary.

I thought Gera was silent

 

RE: Charlie Nicholas

Schwarzer - 8 Controlled the box well and made at least one quality save. Neither goal was his fault. An improvement over both Niemi and Keller, IMO

Pantsil - 6 Good attacking RB. He was caught out a bit defensively, but I see a lot of good potential here.

Hangeland - 5 Was only adequate defensively, but his passing out of the back was horrible.

Hughes - 4 Poor game. His only redeeming moments were when he went over to help Pantsil on the right.

Konchesky - 4 Other than the game-costing mistake, he played better than both CB, but it was still a poor game. He needs to provide much better quality when he moves forward.

Murphy - 4 Mostly invisible. He had some decent moments of passing, but didn't make an impact either defensively or in holding up the ball.

Bullard - 5 Erratic today. He had some quality passes, crosses and corners and others which were simply horrid. He had real problems holding onto the ball.

Davies - 6 Consistent play on the right, both defensively and on the attack.

Gera - 5 Some good creative moments, but horrible finishing and a real non-entity at controlling the midfield.

Seol - 6 Certainly the best of the two strikers, he did well with the service he received and helped in the midfield. He lacked focus and/or stamina in the 2nd half and should be evaluated as to whether he should be a starter or a "super-sub."

Zamora - 3 Mostly invisible. Only helped in that attack when he went wide; in the penalty box, he lacked the ability to hold up the ball, didn't pass well, and couldn't head the ball on to anyone else in a Fulham kit. At this point, as sad as it is to say, I think Dempsey is a better target striker than Zamora.

-------------------

The team looked attractive the 1st half, but some core issues need to be solved:
- passing out of the back four needs to be improved in order to retain possession
- our midfield lacks a "backbone"; none of the players are capable of holding up the ball and retaining possession; none of them are great defenders, either.
- it may just be due to lack of time, but the connections from our midfield to our forwards needs to be crisper
- we need to finish, but I suppose that's a Fulhamish problem, not a player one...

IMO, we need Dempsey or Andreason in the midfield to provide that backbone (and no, I don't think Dempsey is a great defensive mid, but he's better at that role than Murphy or Bullard). Perhaps Andranik could slot in, but I don't know him well enough. We also need a better balanced striking duo; hopefully AJ brings one part of the equation, but I don't see Zamora being the solution for the other half of that companioship - we need a forward who can hold up the ball in the box, and Zamora isn't your man for that.

 

Hughes is 6'0", same height as Bocanegra. (Heck, Fabio Cannavaro is only 5'9".) It's possible to be strong in the air even if you're not as tall as Hangeland, Hughes just isn't.

I'm starting to wonder if you understand that this is Fulham you're watching and not Inter. You never have anything good to say about anything. The team played awful, the players we're buying are awful, etc.

 

Konch had moments, of near greatness, and nearly absolute shamefulness.

This one had some extra bite to it, for many reasons, including the fact that everyone knows this is a better Club than what we have had in roughly a year and a half (at the least).

I still expect better than last season, by quite a bit.

 

Re: RE: Charlie Nicholas

Very good analysis Andy. I agree with everything you wrote though I am willing to give Zamora some more time.

 

... but Bocanegra no longer plays for Fulham, in part, because he's short. And Hughes may be a tad shorter than Bocanegra.

Fabio Cannavaro is short, but he isn't particularly good in the air against taller players. Cannavaro is great because of how he reads passes that come mostly on the ground. I'm not sure he'd be so great in the EPL.

Kolo Toure and William Gallas, maybe even John Terry, are better examples of non-tall CBs who thrive in the EPL... although Toure and Gallas provide a chink in Arsenal's armor by being short on set pieces.

Anyway, we're probably stuck with Hughes this season.

 

A) I was using height listings on Wikipedia; if they're wrong I apologize.
B) Both Boca and Hughes are short, I agree, but I stand by the point that it's not impossible to be good in the air if you're short, as long as you use your height effectively. I don't really think Boca's ability in the air is really the reason why he wasn't playing for Fulham, because it's clearly better than Hughes.

 

I don't know. Roy Hodgson obviously thought Bocanegra was deficient in certain areas compared to Hughes. I really can't tell much of a difference between the two, although Hughes seemed to be more consistent than Bocanegra last season. Bocanegra is great at attacking the ball in the air on corners and set pieces, but he didn't appear any better at heading the ball while defending.

Again, I don't think Hughes was all that bad yesterday. No Konchesky error, no loss. The Geovanni goal was just good skill on his part.

I don't rate Hughes very high at all, but he'll do for me until there's someone better to take his place.

 

I agree that Roy must've thought Bocanegra was deficient in some areas. I just don't think any of those areas are anything with heading the ball involved, at least compared to Hughes. I'm not saying he was bad yesterday in particular, as I wasn't able to see the game, and I think you're right that he was more consistent than Bocanegra last season, and that he seemed to mesh well with Hangeland, but there were a bunch of goals in the second half of last season that we conceded entirely because he's bad in the air. He'll do until there's someone better to take his place, but by default more than anything if you ask me.

 

Saw it on delay w/ Mo and family.

Thanks PK for a youtubeable (is that a word?) lapse that will be shown forever on how not to play defense. Hughes and the Hangman, I thought, were quite poor today, the back line was the weak link of the organization.

Didn't know Seol had it in him. I thought he earned more than a 6.

Ugh, more points conceded from a winning position. I don't need to see that again this year. Sure, perspective counts, but my point of view does not include beautiful scenery and pretty women right now, just the bottom of a glass of Sam Adams (I don't like gin).

Still, I have to say it was great to have everyone back yesterday.

 

Bullard started out like he would be the best player of the match. He disappeared after about 30 minutes.

Seol played quite well until he tired later in the 2nd half. The defense was inconsistent and PK's giveaway could easily have been, at worst, a throw in if he was smarter.

When they kept the ball on the ground they were far more of a challenge to defend than when they were just kicking it down field since they couldn't control the 50/50s.

The one good thing about yesterday ... the season started and I got Setanta. :3d footy:

 

Coog. Short for Coogar??

 

Difference? Boca's the hot one

After a day of lamenting, I must say it's good to hear from everyone again. We have 37 more games folks...lots of ground to cover.

:banana: