Fulham v. Reading -- the revenge

Long live the streak!

 

Fun fact: Fulham has more points in the second half of the season (46) than Reading has accumulated all season (42). What a difference a year makes.

Reading really started to sink just as Fulham took off in December. Back in mid-March they fired Jaap Stam and under the management of Paul Clement (who managed Swansea until December) won their two home games against QPR and Preston, and only fell apart at Villa Park after going down a man in the 30th minute. It would seem that Reading under new management is not as bad as they had been. Jokanovic will need to have the team focused on this match and not worried about what Cardiff might be doing.

As for my revenge list, I had taken Williams off after exposing himself to football fans everywhere. Obita has also been out for almost the entire season due to knee surgery, so I'm taking him off too since my son had to spend months doing the same last year. So I'm left with Kermorgant and the Ref. Kermorgant is just old and probably won't even see the pitch. The Ref has a name: Martin Atkinson. Does that sound familiar to anyone? His name has been brought up a lot recently since a sizeable portion of Manchester wants to kill him now. He was the ref in the Citeh/United match on Saturday and if you didn't see it, let's just say that the fans in blue are so upset with his officiating that they may "remove this stone from my shoe". (I'm not actually suggesting harm come to a ref, they are humans and have inherent value like the rest of us - probably)

 

It seems like we're on the verge of a huge offensive breakout. Lots of confidence on display at Hillsborough Saturday, just not a lot of scoring. But at least the right guys scored. Even though he's not scoring at the moment, Sess is doing great things dribbling and passing, much to the benefit of #32. Mitrovic has been amazing, but he's getting good service, not just from Ryan. Wait. Too much thinking. Hatter's shirt is ready, Nicholas Michael Everett's halftime rant on facebook is ready, and the dancing banana is stretching. I really don't care what Cardiff does against Villa, as long as we're ahead of BOTH of them and firmly right behind Wolves on May 6th at about, oh, 8 o'clock in the evening.

 

According to whoscored.com, Reading is strong at creating chances using through balls. I'm not sure if Joka will continue to use the Ream/Odoi pairing, but whomever is in central defense will need to be on their toes and there will need to be a line general making sure that all 4 defenders hold the line when necessary.

Hopefully Fulham will score early and often to take that extra pressure off of the back line. But as long as turnovers in the middle to back third are avoided, Fulham have a prime opportunity for another 3 points. COYW!

 

Piazon comes in for Ojo (who isn't on the bench either), otherwise the same starting XI:

Bettinelli
Fredericks, Odoi, Ream, Targett,
McDonald, Cairney, Johansen
Piazon, Mitrovic, Sessegnon

Bench: Button, Kalas, Christie, Norwood, Kebano, Fonte, Kamara

Ayite is also missing after coming off after just 10 minutes on Saturday.

 

20!

 

Rolling

 

Still lots of work to do to hold on to that spot, but I sure do like looking at the table right now.

 

Highlights via Reading:


GJ went absolutely out of his mind yesterday when Bacuna took out Sessegnon and after seeing the video it was totally deserved reaction. A ridiculous two footed studs up tackle from behind - disgusting. Thank goodness the kid seems okay. An injury to Sessegnon would be the worst possible thing to happen right now. As was pointed out on the FulhamUSA Facebook group, Fulham secured a playoff spot with the win and Middlesbrough's loss. While we absolutely need to push for automatic promotion, we also want everyone to stay healthy for a possible playoff run.

This is our fourth consecutive shutout win and the 10th in 2018. Mitrovic and Sessegnon aren't firing goals in at will recently, but the defense has been playing so well that we don't need much (although a second goal would make following the match much less stressful)

 

As Fulham supporters, we have a common interest in maintaining the power of The Shirt. Don -- in case you hadn't thought of it, I did a search and there are a number of options in the San Antonio area for fumigation services if the Febreeze stops working. More power to The Shirt!