Sunderland v. Fulham

Had to be somewhere early this morning, so thrilled to see the final score on my phone :banana-dance: Extremely happy to see Kasami given the opportunity. He was so close to leaving last window that he could of came back w/a poor attitude, but instead worked his butt off and is rewarded. Hopefully we had a good turnout for the opener in the chat.

 

Fulhamish, but I'll take it

 

Like the nomination of the ancient Greek, especially the category, we could shorten it to the BIBS-by-JGSR award? or perhaps the Neymar Award? :roll:

 

Thought I'd give it 24 hrs before writing anything so I could watch more matches and maybe gain a little perspective. That wasn't helpful.

The Good:
3 pts and a clean sheet on the road.
The back 4 & Stek (after Crippled Son went off) were strong and Boateng and Sidwell provided pretty good protection for the back four. Duff was very good defensively and allowed Riether to pinch in, further congesting the box and smothering anything Sunderland tried to create in close. It was nice to see the Thames Barrier with a flashback cameo performance.
While allowing Sunderland to snipe at our net 21 x's isn't a good thing, most of those were at range and were low percentage shots (they only managed 3 on target all day).
Kasami got a start, played 90 and looked like he could do a job for us this year. I'm not going to go so far as to say he showed worthy of a starting spot, but unless it's a numbers issue, we'd be better served with him in the squad than on loan.
Briggs got some good playing time in. Don't think he's the answer at starting lb, but I wouldn't be uncomfortable with him as the regular backup.

The Bad:
Richardson...injured...again, and whatever ramifications that has with Riise wanting a move. Hopefully we were already working on something in the transfer market for a lb. Keeping Riise isn't that great an option, imo.
Pressure. Sunderland pressured us in midfield, while we didn't put the same type of pressure on the ball until it got to within 25-30 yds of our box. In a league where most teams play the same 4-2-3-1 possession based scheme (or some very similar version of 4-5-1), conceding the point of attack the way we do is frustrating. It's frustrating to see teams out-pressuring us most weeks. This is made worse when you look at....
Our Offense. Outside of 2 attacking sequences (one of which led to the goal), that was the same lackluster, uninspired crap we got last year. I've watched 6 matches this weekend and we were easily the worst team I saw offensively. The biggest difference? Movement and an inability to handle pressure. The latter is a byproduct of the former to a large degree. When we get the ball in midfield or further, you'll see 1-2 of the opposition defenders close down on the ball. For us, the ball carrier then harries about trying to maintain possession until he turns it over or passes back. There's little to no movement, no rotation, no one creating space. There's no sense of a team playing for each other. If we continue to play this way, signing Bent will be largely irrelevant. It's why Berbatov is often neutralized and drops back so much. It's why Ruiz can't find 2 feet to operate in. We could use a creative cm who can pick a pass, sure. But if we moved the way most of the teams I watched move, even that isn't so imperative. Any monkey in the Prem can pass the ball 5 yds as long as there's someone open to pass it to. I watched teams with far less talent than we have create more chances, against better opposition than we faced, simply by having more movement off the ball. I'd love to hear someone ask Martin Jol about this. We'd be more effective playing route 1 imo than what we're attempting to do. Worst case scenario, we'd be turning the ball over deeper in the opposition end. Watching us play just looks lazy and uninspired, except for our defending in our own end.

The Ugly:
That $#*%!@& Greek. It doesn't matter what he does playing-wise on the pitch, his embellishment antics are an embarrassment on the club and the sport. I truly hate having a player like that in our colors and was so disappointed when we brought him back. As soon as he went down, my disgust level went up.

Summary:
Here are some stats for you:

Shots(On target) - 21(3) - 5(1)
Corners - 6 - 1
Possession - 57% - 43%
Saves - 0 - 3

Shots(On target) - 23(6) - 7(2)
Corners - 5-1
Possession - 51% - 49%
Saves - 2-4


The numbers on the top are from our match with Sunderland. The second set are Hull's v Chelsea. I get Hull playing that way, Chelsea are far superior talent-wise plus it was a road match. But I'd argue we have more talent than Sunderland. On the road, the matchup was a toss up at worst. So playing so negative is disappointing. That said, football is a funny game and it can often come down to converting that one chance. But it's a low percentage way to play. It worked yesterday. I wouldn't bet on it working very often.

Was good to see everyone back in the chat room. Hopefully the next performance will be better.