Fulham vs. Huddersfield

Fulham gets an early start at Craven Cottage against Huddersfield on Saturday. The match kicks off at 7:30am EST and will be available on ESPN+.

We first got a taste of what Fulham was capable of when they beat Huddersfield 1-5 in the second match this season. As a reminder, Fulham went down to 10 men in that match when Wilson was sent off in the 72nd minute. We learned then that Silvaball was way different than Parkerball when Fulham kept attacking rather than nursing a 1-3 lead. The 10 men of Fulham prevented Huddersfield from scoring any more and scored two more goals of their own. That was the Terriers' worst loss so far and they have bounced back to fight their way into the playoff spots, but only by a three point margin and having played two games more than some of their competition. Huddersfield can boast that they have the league's longest unbeaten streak having not lost since November. However their only wins so far in 2022 came against Derby and Reading.

Fulham should be in relatively good health coming into this one and we'll probably see the same squad that got wins against both Millwall and Hull. Mitrovic will be looking to claim the Championship goal scoring record for his own and continue his march toward the modern-day 2nd tier record. The Fulham defense will be looking for a third consecutive clean sheet.

I will probably not be able to post highlights this weekend, but Huddersfield is one of those teams that usually posts their own extended highlights. However, I put "usually" in italics there for a reason. They decided against posting extended highlights of the beat down Fulham gave them back in August, so if Fulham trounces Huddersfield again we may be out of luck. You can find their channel here if you want to keep an eye out for the extended highlights: https://www.youtube.com/c/OfficialHTAFC/videos

 

Interesting outlook on the match from a Terrier perspective. COYW

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/football/news/huddersfield-town-fulham-game-preview-23126354d

 

Technical difficulties. Does espn+ not know I got up at 630 for this.

 

In the end, Fulham’s technical difficulties outlasted the broadcast’s technical difficulties (which were not so much ESPN’s issues but driving wind and rain knocking out numerous cameras around the pitch). Outside of Williams, most every Fulham player’s positive contributions were far outweighed by their poor decisions and even worse execution.

This maybe would’ve saved a point, but I don’t agree with the announcer regarding the penalty decision against Rodak. Thomas may have gotten to the ball first but he didn’t have control - if fact he kicked it straight out of bounds - and his momentum took him into Rodak. If you’re going to blow the whistle on that, then you need to whistle for contact on every fifty-fifty ball.

I will credit Huddersfield for not giving Fulham any clear opportunities. They were defensively sound and executed much better than Fulham throughout. Fulham had six shots on target but an expected goal of only 0.9. So even the shots that Fulham had were not quality chances.

 

Not happy with the result, obviously, but I'm going to go with the glass half full perspective from this one. Despite our incredibly uneven and critical mistake laden play, we still managed to come back far enough to give ourselves a chance to salvage a point. The first half was a nightmare, occasionally interrupted by a moment or two of brilliant play that looked promising, but fizzled. The second half was better, except we had one of those days where we weren't clinical around the goal and couldn't finish. To be fair, we haven't had that many days like that this season. Short answer, I'm willing to chalk this one up as a bad day at the office. Rip it out, wad it up, fling it at the nearest waste can and get ready for Peterborough Wednesday night at the Cottage. I'm expecting a better performance, fewer mistakes and the result we should all expect.

 

This was my assessment as well.

 

"...In the end, Fulham’s technical difficulties outlasted the broadcast’s technical difficulties (which were not so much ESPN’s issues but driving wind and rain knocking out numerous cameras around the pitch). Also known as "TV production manager preparation failure." Driving wind and rain??? In England??? In February???
GET THE **** OUTTA' HERE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's like showing up at Churchill Downs the weekend of the Oaks and Derby in t-shirts, cutoff jeans, a a mesh Reds ball cap and a few Hefty bags. It's not a question of "if" the weather's gonna nasty, but when...and how many cameras you're gonna lose for how long...IF you don't prepare adequately for it.
Like at CC today.
To be fair, there is a possibility that they're still figuring out the weather sensitive characteristics of the new TV setup in the new stand. But I doubt it. It's 2022. They've had enough time to figure it out.

 

Oy, that was Fulhamish in the extreme. Maybe it’s time to let Cairney and Ream rest for a game or two. I missed the moment of the pk call, but did see that Silva wasn’t happy about it.

Onwards. Better days to come.

 

For @MicahMan

 

I had planned to watch this today when I finally had a chance, but a recently installed ESPN app "helpfully" told me the score on Saturday, so I didn't bother and just caught the highlights(thanks @astroevan ). It seemed to me it was just one of those matches where Fulham couldn't catch a break. If that early cross to Mitrovic gets tapped in, then it becomes an entirely different game. If Cairney clears the ball rather than serving it up, they don't score. If the ref didn't have sheets of water blasting him in his face he'd see the Huddersfield player turning his back to the ball before making contact with Rodak or maybe he'd see the clear and obvious Huddersfield handball in the box. I'm bummed about the result but not too worried overall.