Fulham v. Sheffield Utd

@HatterDon is spot on with that summary - the big issue is COVID-19. Already half of Saturday's matches have been postponed. If this match does make its 2:45 EST kickoff on Monday it will be available on ESPN+. Sadly, I have a feeling this thread is going to get revived sometime in January/February for a reschedule.

I was really hoping to see Jokanovic face off against Fulham, but I'm not entirely surprised he didn't make it this far. Sheffield got off to a really slow start with just two points from their first five matches. It seemed he was doomed from that point. Sheffield had been on their best run of the season winning three straight prior to the postponed match with QPR last week. Those wins did come against weaker competition - Reading, Bristol City, and Cardiff so I don't know if too much can be read into that. In fact, the Blades have done very poorly against the top 2/3rds of the table. They are 1 W, 5 D, 8L against those teams. Their new manager has only been with the team for two matches so it is also difficult to say if he's making a difference yet.

I had not thought about the possibility of losing team members during the January window. I can't remember the last time someone of value exited mid-season and I hopefully that doesn't happen now.

 

Heading into the match things have gone Fulham's way. West Brom drew with Barnsley thanks to heroic, desperate defending from Barnsley and an inability to shoot the ball into the net from West Brom. Also, this match was played in fog that made portions of it almost invisible to the TV cameras. Then this morning Middlesbrough converted a penalty and that was all they needed to defeat Bournemouth. The Cherries have now won just once in their last eight - only Peterborough has been worse over that span. Regardless of what happens on Monday, Fulham will get to enjoy another week on top.

 

I got the afternoon off. You'll find me in front of my TV live for this one.

 

Teams have announced their lineups so I guess this match is going to happen! I'm excited looking at the lineup because I think that this is the best starting XI available and I think this is the first time they've all started together:

Rodak
Tete, Tosin, Ream, Robinson
Reed, Seri
Wilson, Carvalho, Kebano
Mitrovic

Subs: Gazzaniga, Odoi, Bryan, Chalobah, DeCordova-Reid, Cairney, Muniz

 

Geez that was terrible. No creativity offensively. Officiating was poor. Fulham were asleep for the Sheffield goal. An afternoon to forget.

 

Ugh..give up a goal in 3’ and get held over next 87?? 11 shots w/only 1 on target ain’t gonna get it done.

 

Highlights from an incredibly frustrating match:


After feeling excited about the squad, this was a huge let-down. Everyone stunk. Robinson and Tete couldn't deliver a cross to anyone in white. Rodak was flat-footed on a shot that never should have made it into the net. Mitrovic couldn't get his few good chances on target. Wilson and Kebano couldn't deliver anything useful on set pieces. This night there were no excuses from bad weather or illness, they just played poorly - again.

And the officiating was a horror-show once more, but it shouldn't be an excuse for Fulham's failings.

Hopefully this punch in the gut helps them turn things around. They've got to start working together again in the final third and stop falling asleep on defense - even for a moment.

EDIT: I forgot to mention I had even pulled out my clapper from my visit to Craven Cottage years ago in hopes that I'd have something to clap for in this match. I did not use it once in joy.

 

So far it looks a lot like matches are going to be decided by whether Fulham which squad scores first.

 

Well this is starting to get concerning. I was fine with a few draws, but this is now five winless matches. It’s becoming more of a trend than an anomaly. The biggest question for me is how did a team go from averaging 2.6 goals per match for the first 18 games of the season to 0.6 goals per match in the last 5. Some of it has been bad luck, some of it has been excellent defending, but I’d say most of it is poor execution by the Fulham players. They definitely need to turn this aspect around.

 

It would appear that the league has made adjustments to how we prefer to attack. Now we need to make effective adjustments to counter that. Sounds simple, but obviously isn't. And now the Birmingham City match is postponed due to COVID. And Seri has been called up by Ivory Coast for the African Cup of Nations. Great...

 

8 out of 10 Championship matches postponed today. I think it’s safe to say that Covid is affecting every facility.

 

I was so desperate this morning for a game I watched a Belgian match in it's entirety.