Practice Match: Eintracht Frankfurt 1 - 0 Fulham

Tough to lose on a goal from a ridiculous refereeing decisions, but all-in-all this looked like our best performance of preseason so far, especially given that Eintracht finished 9th in the Bundesliga last season. We seemed calm and confident in possession, but maybe lacked a cutting edge (as they say). Kit also left quite a few players in the full 90 mins. Maybe a sneak peak into the starting XI he has in mind?

 

I checked out the highlights from this match over morning coffee, a few thoughts:

First, what are those giant rocks pointing skyward about? Second, all that mist and green grass, looks like it might be less than 94 degrees there, which is also a bit foreign for me.

But seriously, the highlight quality wasn't great, hard to get a sense of the rhythm and tempo of the match. How hard could it be to put a time stamp on the video in production? I would have liked to know when Dembele came on- he looked downright dangerous on that long run down the left side- and at least seen a few stats like possession per half, chances created, anything really to help me put that highlight into some context.
The referee decision was absolutely not correct, so for me a nil-nil draw with a mid-table bundesliga side is another building block on our road to promotion.

Happy Tuesday and COYW!

 

I was happy to see Dan Burn back in the starting line-up - I kept wondering last season why we didn't see more of him. Unfortunately when I watched part of this live I only got to see him make some sloppy passes! The commentators said that Burn was the Fulham captain for the match. I wasn't sure if I should read anything into that. Is he out of the dog house (if he was ever in it)?

Coach, I think Dembele came on about 70 minutes in, but my memory is fuzzy. He did pick up the energy a bit that had been lagging in the second half.

 

Thanks, where did you find the match?

 

Someone posted a link to a stream on the FulhamUSA page on Facebook. I think the page I went to tried to download about 20 spyware programs to my computer, but there was a stream (with commentary even!) so I figured it was a fair trade.

 

McCormack was wearing the armband at the beginning of the match. He must have passed it on when he was subbed out. I like the 4-2-3-1 formation. Hopefully that sticks and we have the personnel to make it work.

And it's good to know that we avoided the same fan issues that Leeds dealt with against Eintracht last week.
http://screamer.deadspin.com/a-whole-lot-of-leeds-and-eintracht-frankfurt-fans-beat-1719489755

 

In the Riggs video, it looks like we're planning on lining up in 4-1-4-1 with the ability to shift our approach based on the opponent and situations in any given match.

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I like this for the flexibility but also that it keeps us fairly robust in midfield. That was a weakness last year, as we often ceded the majority of possession & left our back four too unptotected. Imo, the one constant since I've been watching football is that the better midfield usually wins. The only problem I see is who plays the 4 outside of O'Hara. You all know my thoughts on Parker there and I fear Emerson is still too lightweight at this time.