Fulham vs. Wolverhampton

Boxing Day! (wish we had an extra holiday between Christmas and New Year’s). Wolves are 10th with 5 more wins and 15 more points than us. They’ve been as good on the road as at home, so we’ll have to put in good shifts all the way around. And they’re easily the best of the promoted teams: Cardiff are 17th and have the same goal difference as us. Again, this one’s more about our issues than anything they’re doing or not doing. Diogo Jota is out for them, he also missed their 2-nil loss to scousers at Molineux Saturday, so no biggie. If we’re to have any hope of survival, we must start winning these games. I think the first goal (if there are any) will be key. If we get it, we now know we have the ability to make it stand. If they get the first, especially if it’s early, we’ll be lucky to get another draw. I think the holiday fixture bunch up helps us. We’ve got a clean sheet to start, but if things go south, we have immediate opportunities to correct them. If we can build off the shutout, we can at least start to dig out of this massive hole we’ve made. But we’ve got to start winning...not drawing...WINNING against teams like Wolves and the rest not named Citeh, ManUre, scousers, Spuds, Gooners and the undead. Cause we ain’t beating any of those guys right now. I think we’ll score at home in this one. It’ll be decided by our defending (shock). If we let in 2 or more, the clean sheet at Toons becomes irrelevant. And we’re back in deep doo-doo.

 

Heads up, Fulhamericans! It's the early match: kickoff at 7:30 A.M.!!! Eastern! (Sorry Joe, that's 4:30 a.m. for you). I'm on vacation, so I'll be in front of the telly bright and early. If any of you have recovered from the egg nog overdose, I'll attempt to check in on the chat. The Keurig's on early auto!

 

No Tom Cairney and no Ryan Sessegnon to start. Kamara apparently impressed enough last week to get the start over Cairney while Sessegnon is healthy enough to at least make the bench. Except for the one change the starting XI is unchanged:

Rico
Odoi, Mawson, Ream
Christie, Chambers, Seri, Bryan
Kamara, Mitrovic, Schurrle

Subs: Bettinelli, Le Marchand, Sessegnon, McDonald, Cairney, Ayite, Vietto

 

Arg!!! Didn’t realize it was the 4:30 match until 6:55. Thanks James for the heads up, but last few days have been crazy. Sounds like it was 2 points lost from the report, hate the wording ‘bundled home’ the tying goal in the 85th.

Wishing everyone joy yesterday, today, and manana.

 

If it weren't for the 5 minutes of parking the bus, we were looking to have consecutive clean sheets after all our defensive problems. Damn.

 

Also concerned about Claudio’s positional tinkering. We’re not in a position to experiment for matches. That’s what the training ground is for. Thought we did OK in the first half, not so good in the 2nd, even though we scored first against the run of play. Like some have already said, we regressed after scoring. At home. That’s disappointing. It also occurs to me that Mitro is not the type of striker that thrives in a counterattacking system, which we’ve obviously switched to due to our defensive issues. Still had lots of chances go begging.
Improving, but not quickly enough to get the points we need. Got to start finding a way to win these kinds of matches.

 

Following the match through text feeds while working I felt like we were unlucky not to get 3 points. However, after watching the highlights I think Fulham was lucky to not give up a PK from Odoi's handball and Chambers was lucky not to have been sent off.



Fulham did manage to get off the bottom of the table, but Crystal Palace having beaten Citeh over the weekend, didn't have enough in the tank to get anything more than a draw from Cardiff. That means Fulham is still 4 points from safety (5 given Fulham's poor goal differential).

 

There WERE lots of good things. Sess came back from injury with a bang (which reminds me: when’s the last time one of our subs scored the first goal of the match?). Defense was better, despite being unable to hold a lead. Overall individual performances were better. Two solid outings to build upon.