Minority Report - Fulham

Having read the other current threads on the forum, I shall henceforth be retitling my reports Minority Drivel. That is all they are. Don't take me so seriously. It is all just opinion.

 

You seem to be arguing against yourself here, Red Rain. We should go 4-5-1 but we haven't the players to do it?

We are going down without a whimper but you don't like the stats that say we are doing better than last (promotion) season?

Don't know about Minority Drivel - I'm a little in mind of the countercheck quarrelsome!

 

We should have spent a tiny fraction of the Mawson and Stones money on some experienced defenders during the transfer window. By experienced, I mean players from League One who we thought capable of the step up. In the same way as Bradshaw and Moncur were thought to be.

 

You are, of course, correct. We cannot properly correct the mistakes that we made in the last transfer window until the next. Until them we have no alternative but to hobble along with what we have.

The thing that most frustrated me on Saturday was that Scott Parker was allowed to play in his own little bubble. No one got near him, no one put him under any pressure. We must have known that he was the big danger, but we seemed to have no strategy to deal with him. It was like we were so confident in our own system that we felt there was no need to plan for combatting theirs. For example, Scott Parker was not playing very far away from Marley Watkins. Why couldn't he have been asked to follow Parker about when we were out of possession. Is was not our only problem on Saturday by any means, but it is one for which there seemed an obvious solution.

It is not that I do not like stats, I just think that when stats are prepared crudely they can mean anything that you want them to mean. They could equally be used to suggest that at this point in the season our stats are much better than last season when we were promoted. Therefore we are certain to be playing in the Premier League next season. That is clearly ridiculous, but the stats support it. No, I depend upon what I see, and in the last 3 games, what I have seen has worried me greatly. Whereas last season I was confident that we were improving in spite of the stats, this year I fear that we are getting worse, in spite of the stats.

 

People are clinging desperately to out of date form to show things are still okay. All but one of those points were earned over a month ago. Momentum is very important in sport. A study of five-set matches in tennis shows that, out of all the possible permutations, the greatest percentage are won by a player who was 2 sets to love down.

 

Could be worse could be a dutch cap....that really would be weird

 

Oh dear, Red Rain! I take your point about statistics. Case in point: Sam Allardyce is either England’s best manager [100% win record] or worst [only full time manager to have won only one international]. But 12 games is more than a quarter of a season, and you have to have regard to some sort of wider statistical base when that information is available. “I depend on what I see” is a fair enough subjective opinion, but can hardly be of assistance in a discussion, because it smacks of “I know what I see and I am right”. And taking yesterday as one of your three games must be questionable, due to the absence of Hourihane and White for starters, but arguably with Payne and Janko to throw in as well, when viewing our future prospects. Sure we have to improve, and to compete with those who are watching us and adapting to combat us. But we can learn as we go, too.

As far as combating Scott Parker goes, you make it sound deceptively simple. But here is a player who although 36, has played around 300 Premier League games, 10 in the Champions League, and represented England at every level, including 18 times at full international level. Much as I admire Marley Watkins, I think you ask a lot of him there. As ever, it’s a matter of opinions, and I respect yours a great deal. But I’m afraid I don’t share the ‘end of the world’ viewpoint just yet!

 

Clinging to nowt. I expected it to be tough this season and so far I'm happy with how we are competing. We are 11th. Reading this forum you'd think we were 22nd.

We aren't faring as well right now. The lads need backing that bit more. Not condemning.

But that's only my opinion.

 

Can't say I disagree with your match analysis of yesterday. They were much better than us on the day. Disagree entirely that you can extrapolate that to the rest of our season. I've seen us tear teams apart in this division playing 4-4-2. Admittedly, that was with Hourihane in the team. I don't know why he was missing yesterday or how long he will be out and I do think we might struggle without him, but with him we'll win some games an lose others, just as we have been doing, even if we stick rigidly to 4-4-2.

 

Like you, I expect nothing from the Newcastle Game so I think that we can declare a truce until we play Bristol City. As always, I hope that we win that game, but I fear this place will be a very different place should we lose it. In the mean time, good luck with the horses.

 

for me a big reason we struggle in games are these teams that have come down from the prem and the more experienced sides are smarter when it comes to playing the ref, when to foul, when to be nasty, when to be underhand and how to win free kicks etc in dangerous areas of the pitch. Fulham did all these things very well and we were just completely naive. Conor has this in his game and we had nobody doing this for us v Fulham.

We have also become a little too predictable in our play so we need to mix it up a little. Now teams know how we play we have been found out a little and thats why our system isn't working so well right now. Weve also stopped harrying teams, closing them down, hunting in packs, trying to get the ball back within 4 seconds.

Think we may need to change things around a little just to be less predictable.and get cuter when it comes to a little gamesmanship. Dont like to see it but if the other team is at it we need to wise up to it.

 

Great post.100% agree

 

4-4-2 has worked for us when we've had a fully fit side. It's all about partnerships.

Hammill looks a shadow of the player he is when he's got White to work with.

Scowen was poor without Hourihane alongside him.

As daft as it sounds there's that few players brought up playing 4-4-2 that it takes some adapting to.

Whilst he may have won man of the match for two quality assists Morsy was awful defensively, I'd imagine he's never played in a 4 at Wigan & pretty sure he didn't at Chesterfield

 

I don't think the crowd reaction at full time supports this. Maybe a minority think that way, but they must have left before the end.

 

Sometimes 4-4-2 will be too open against teams that play 3 in the middle.

Saturday was a prime example of this, our midfield 2 got played around by an experienced, clever Scott Parker. Time and time again he had time and space to pick a pass and hurt us. The amount of times Morsey and Scowen backed off him was unreal. Fans were shouting "close him down"! But if they did that they left an extra man to push onto our back 4 making it 4v4.

Unfortunately plan B lost his nerve and ran away to league1

 

Chuckle.

 

Spot on about closing down Parker. It's easy in theory, but he's top notch at this level and as you say, very clever.

He's not on all that money for standing still and letting players stand on him, and he also has other good players around him to take advantage of the space left by paying him particular attention.

Sometimes you just have to admit that you've been given a masterclass by a top player. He was pretty faultless all afternoon and hardly had the ball for more than one or two touches.

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The issue I felt we had was that we didn't press. The front 2 did, but the midfield didn't back them up. We didn't press and gave Parker & Cairney the freedom to pick us apart.


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This.

 

Totally agree, Parker was treated like a visiting member of the Royal Family... Apart from when Scowen clobbered him.