[R] Villains v. Fulham

I got called into the hospital before the match started and set the DVR to record the match. I avoided coming to the site because I didn't want to know th outcome, but when I got home no recording. After reading the posts about hte match I'm a little glad I didn't get to see it. Watching another late goal loss would have been to much after the crappy day I had.

 

I thought the midfield played pretty well in the first half, and that was about the only positive I saw. The defense let Villa get behind them way too much. Baird could have been standing off the pitch and he would have done a better job. I guess he figured that anyway, and decided to pick up a second yellow. Healy was invisible and I thought Kamara was up and down, though showed some promise. He was unfortunate not to draw a penalty, as the Villa defender thought he was the goal keeper and smacked the ball away, that was goalbound. Hopefully, being back at the Cottage against Tottenham, they will get their act together and play a solid and complete 90 minutes.

 

Well, I couldn't believe we let in yet another late goal (3 in 4 games) and Lawrie must be fuming and toooo right.

Now that I have calmed down, and returned to England, I am a bit more positive about how the team played, although I'm not so happy about where we currently stand, ie. 19th place!

My thoughts:

Overall, we played and have been playing quite well but decisions haven't went our way (who could deny that Healy had a goal against boro, John should've been awarded a penalty against Villa, Villa's second goal was offside, etc.). I refuse to use the word luck...simply we've been screwed.

I was going to go through each player and how they did but I think that has been discussed to death already. But did want to mention Baird and say he has my support as the RB. I think he was more exposed in his position than any other and not like he was given much help on defense...being left one on one with Ashley young is never going to be easy. Give the boy some time...as for his replacement, it was great to see Volzy on the field again...but have to say I prefer Liam.

Chin up Fulham fans, the season is very, very ealy.

 

I was very disappointed watching this game on the DVR today. Like in the game against Arsenal it only took one good pass to muck up the Fulham off-side trap.

It was also a good thing that Young's shots weren't on target, save one, most of the day. By the end of the day, he owned Baird. Young apparently setup camp in Baird's head and stayed there all day.

I was surprised at how bad Cerew was for Villa. I thought he was supposed to be better. I haven't seen a forward mess up more shots and play with less confidence than him. Fulham should have come away with a point, but que sera sera.

I usually root for the Spurs first, but next Saturday will be a Fulham cheer day. They need me to root for them far more than the Spurs who played awful boring football against Man U. At least Fulham tried to win.

 

You're right, AmerMike. It's too early to hit the panic button. So far this season, I think we've played pretty well, but we haven't gotten the results. We certainly deserve more than the 3 pts we have.

 

While I would like to see us higher in the standings this early in the season, I am FAR from worried about the Relegation battle. It may be a close one, but I still believe 100% we will avoid it and cause some major headaches along the way.

We just need to focus on our midfield. Our defense has been pretty solid, surprisingly. But we can't seem to win the ball in the middle of the field. You are lucky to only have a 2 - 1 loss if you are out shot by almost 20 shots!

But the realist in me knows it is only going to get worse before it gets better. We have a tough month ahead of us, but I hope the boys can come out with a solid preformance and truimph in the end.

 

I didn't get to see the game...how was Keller? Good enough to warrant a start against his former club next week?

I certainly don't like sitting in 19th place. Any good rumors about transfers coming to Fulham? Help on the way because this team needs some backline help in a big way. I saw the highlights on the weekly wrapup show in FSC and both goals were the result of very poor defending...

 

While I'm not happy to see FFC lost... at least they played well enough to not be 'routed' as I feared. The rest of the season will tell the story but I believe this effort will be put in a better perspective by Christmas.

Like I said, I've never seen a team come into the states in preseason and play better than Villa. The only thing that will keep them from challenging into top 7 is depth.

 

That and their defense is not that strong. Offensively, they are top notch though.

 

Yeah, the Setanta guys were a little bit "pro-Villa". The BBC commentator sounded "pro-Fulham" though and thought there was a definite hand ball.

I think Kamara's "pass" to Dempsey may have been deflected. I can watch the replay of the whole game on Setanta and it looks like it fell luckily to Dempsey, although I think he was trying to get it to Dempsey. It's really hard to tell though for sure.

And Ashley ran into Baird on the second yellow, although Setanta guys thought it was surely a foul.

 

Same here... I feel horrible.