Fulham vs Abu Dhabi Citeh

In Kacaniklic I trust.

 

Relax Sempai, was just a joke. Maybe I need to attend the SoCalJoe School of Emoticon Usage to better convey my meaning.

Bad news about Berbatov. City looked like a big ask and Southampton has Fulhamish written all over it, so maybe missing those two games isn't that bad. On the plus side, it looks like Diarra's injury isn't as bad as feared and we'll have him back in a month or so.

 

Fulham already faced a daunting task which is not made any easier given this news. The SW6 injury jinx strikes again...

Sorry, but I don't see any points earned tomorrow - hope the Whites keep the GD respectable.

COYW

 

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Sorry to go :text-offtopic:, but when a million dollar idea comes along you have got to jump at it. :banana-parachute:

Now then does anyone think Petric can find the back of the net?

 

^Epic.

 

Guess my quoting skills are sub-par.

 

Well, it very well might rain and the laconic Bulgarian will not be there, but whosoever shall be there,I shall be at Tinto's from 2pm onwards, reading the Private Eye in the corner and hoping we keep down the scoreline.

 

No Berba, no goals. S**t.

 

I really thought we could have gotten a point from this one. We got a gift penalty and when a clear handball happens in the box........nothing. Such is life. Overall not a bad effort when you are competing against pure money.

 

Finally watched the recording of the final 30 minutes of the match, and even though I knew the result, was surprisingly disappointed that the lads didn't get the point. The back looked comfortable and were absorbing the pressure nicely, and letting Balotelli take 30 yard shots. Hate to point the finger at anyone, because there wasn't a player in a white jersey that put in a poor shift, but WHAT was Riise doing?? Can't remember who it was against, but he did the identical thing last season with the same exact result. A simple chest and kick away with no one around him turned into a foolish and awkward header back into the center of the box...ugh

Great stuff as always Don in the 'View', listing the SUBS they have highlights the embarrassment of riches. Their biggest issue must be the turmoil that's dealt with by Mancini with all those egos and lack of pitch time for players that are capable of being stars elsewhere. Couldn't argue with a few different choices for MOTM, but thought Hughes was exceptional after a shaky outing at Wigan. Special mention to Bryan Ruiz who looks like he's adjusted to the game in the Prem. Now if he can only stay healthy...

 

I’ll only offer a quick blurb about the match since I am working this weekend. Don, I enjoyed the read as usual and agreed with most of your summary but I find myself disagreeing with this comment.

"Sidwell and Baird more than held their own,"

Well, let me clarify that I disagree that Sidwell and Baird held their own as midfielders but I did think they performed admirably as a third and fourth central defender during the final two thirds of the match. I know we all think of Citeh as being the offensive juggernaut they looked like against Fulham yesterday but the truth is until they met our central midfield pairing they have been just average. One of their Achilles heels thankfully showed up yesterday in that Citeh have been struggling to put the ball on target but they have also had only averaged almost exactly fifty percent of possession before we made them look like Barcelona. Don't get me wrong, I did not expect an even match up in midfield but Fulham went from an extreme of playing lovely to nearly lovely football in the first third of the game to allowing Citeh to start their offense just outside their eighteen for a large part of the last two thirds of the match.

Playing the ball out of the back requires some space and if our two central mids are going to back track to just in front of the eighteen before stopping the ball we are going to struggle to maintain possession. I sincerely hope what we saw was Citeh finding their form against us and not a preview of things to come because even against a ten man West Brom team most of the possession and passing was funneled through the back four. Of the two, I think Baird has been the most impressive and I think with a field general type beside him he would look that much better but it seems we are short of one of those at the moment.

Man of the match for me, if I am picking anyone, was Hugo for his determined runs because the defensive effort was a team effort. Duff had another very good match. Ruiz was solid to impressive before Citeh made him vanish. Kacaniklic needs to play against teams that like send their backs bombing forward because he is not afraid to make them work defensively and was a thorn for Citeh when he did see the ball. I am not sure where he fits yet but perhaps he is the super sub for now. I don't think anyone put in a terrible shift. Riise's mistake on the header was painful and Zaboleta was constantly open his side of the pitch but that could very easily fall on Hugo's shoulders which would nullify his man of the match award. At the end of the day Citeh deserved the points so I will salute them and look forward to next week.

 

We were outclassed, it's as simple as that really. I don't think Jol got the tactics/strategy right either, but I can't put the loss on him b/c that would suggest I felt a result was in the balance and I never really felt that way. Maybe a little in the first 20 minutes, especially after that gift of a pen.

As for Jol's tactics, I thought we were too passive and invited too much pressure onto us....for far too long, and as Barry pointed out, from far too deep. To be fair, that did work the previous week...but that was Wigan. The other part of it I didn't like was that when we did get possession, we pushed forward every time instead of trying to just hold the ball for a bit. As a result, we gave the ball back to City too quickly and we never broke up their rhythm. Their momentum just continued to build until they ultimately found the back of the net late in each half. To our credit, we were frantic in our defense in the box and tough to break down.

As for MotM, I wouldn't go with either cm. Offensively, Jol has changed the offense so that it doesn't run through them. Thus their only job is to maintain possession and get the ball to the fullbacks out wide or pass back to the cb's. Sidwell gave the ball away too much for my liking on that end. Defensively they were okay, but I felt it was a failure to not step up and stop those runs outside the 18 yd box that City kept making. That may very well have been by design, but either way it excludes them from the MotM conversation imo. None of the forward offensive players really merit credit b/c we didn't score or create very many chances aside from the penalty & for the most part they went missing in the 2nd half. Hugo stood out to me the most on the offensive end, but he left Riise isolated too many times on the defensive end. No one was outstanding really. So it comes down to who had a very solid match and that would apply to half the team. For me it would be either Hughes, who was much more solid yesterday, or Schwarzer. Hangeland got muscled off by Dzeko on the game winner. Riise got us the penalty, but gifted the gw goal chance. I really didn't notice Riether that much for some reason.

We got our first glimpse of our ancient Greek and it didn't look too good. I'm hoping that's just rust, but he looked like what some of us had feared he would. Maybe the next mystery signing will be better. Hopefully "Bird" just took a knock and doesn't have any sort of lingering injury.

End of the day, we really didn't lose any points on the day and took the minimum damage to our goal diff. Given the injuries, that's not so bad.