Fulham vs. Hull City

Fulham hosts the Hull City Tigers on Saturday. Remember that the UK has already fallen back into Standard Time, but we are still in Daylight Savings Time. This cuts down on the difference by an hour so look for the match an hour later than on a typical Saturday.

Hull sit four points behind Fulham in the table - the same distance between Fulham and first place West Brom. The Tigers have had a pretty good run recently coming off of back-to-back wins against Derby and Nottingham Forest. Hull may need to work on their conditioning because they are much better in the first half than the second half. Hull has only allowed 4 goals all season in the 45 minutes but 16 in the last 45! Their goal differential in the first half is +6, but -6 in the second half. For comparison Fulham is +4 in the first half and +6 in the second. So, look for some late fireworks in this one.

It looks like Magnus Norman will be the backup keeper as Rodak serves his red card suspension. Arter may not be available either.

 

Remember when Jimmy Bullard donned the black and amber? Not me much either...
COYW!

 

It’s not this simple, but it should be. They’re 13th. We are 7th. They’re dead even on goal difference. We are +9.
And we’re at home.
We should win.
If we don’t, then our chances of promotion this season are not very good without some pretty drastic changes.

 

Knockaert is again on the bench in favor of Reid and Johansen comes in for Onomah. The formation also shows this week as a 4-2-3-1

The starting XI
Bettinelli
Odoi, Mawson, Ream, Bryan
Johansen, Reed
Reid, Cairney, Cavaleiro
Mitrovic

Subs: Norman, Sessegnon, Le Marchand, McDonald, Onomah, Knockaert, Kamara

 

Well that was ugly.

 

75% possession, 9 corners to 1, 40 crosses to 8 and 17 of 29 aerial duels won. Yet Hull generated 10 shots to our 8, FIVE on goal to our one and, of course, 3 goals to nil.
Something is very, very wrong here. Parker is looking less and less like a guy ready to lead a side at this level to the next.
How long do we stick with him?

 

I’m feeling like a broken record but this is pretty much the same story every week. Fulham having possession is not really a good thing because in every match the opposition is inviting Fulham to possess and come forward so they can counter.

I’ll confess I didn’t see the match today but that is what my tactics would be against Scott Parker’s Fulham and I’m guessing from the stats that is what Hull did.

 

We're def stuck between the devil we know and the devil we don't. I'm starting to think Parker is less the problem and more certain personnel.

We also have tons of possession, but have to be one of the slowest teams in transition. So guess what: it's really easy to defend against us! And then score goals on simple counterattacks because we're so slow!

The only tweak he can make is letting our backs get forward more, the only real difference between his outlook and Slav's.

 

10 minutes of highlights from Hull. Wish it was 10 minutes that were more fun to watch:


As bad as this loss was, the worst part may have been Joe Bryan getting injured. I haven't heard any word on his condition, but he left early with a back problem and he is the absolute last person we can lose. We have replacements for everyone but him.

For some reason Parker decided to replace Bryan with Le Marchand - the one player on the team who can personally guarantee a loss. Despite Sessegnon's struggles I would much rather have seen him come on. Le Marchand got to work early by getting totally lost in the box, not following the ball, not paying attention to his man, and not doing much of anything except flailing as the ball went into the net.

Fortunately I was only able to watch the first half since things only got worse. My son asked me in the first half "Do you enjoy watching Fulham?" and my response was "No." Fulham's style of play is incredibly frustrating. Lots of possession, but most of it seems to be spent nervously passing around the back with very little threat. Fulham has lots of offensive talent that is being wasted and for that I think it is time for Parker to exit. He has failed to earn a victory against any top-half team so the longer Fulham waits, the less likely promotion.

 

I debated not watching the highlights, but went ahead anyway. I agree about Le Marchand - always a risk. I'm starting to wonder about Mawson's 1v1 defending. He laid off the attackers even more than Odoi but, unlike Odoi, didn't impede the shot. On the second goal, I'm not sure that he knew exactly how close to goal they were (at least that's my excuse for him). I'm not sure why the Fulham defenders are so hesitant to step in and make a challenge. At least make the attacker beat you; don't just sit back and give up a shot.

Possession means nothing if you cannot generate any attacks from it.

 

When this is the lone highlight, there's problems.