Fulham Away, 25th November..ko 4pm

[SAS]

we did enough for 3 points, unfortunatly the silly mistakes cost us that

3 wins out of 3 needed to get us back up there especially considering the next 3 are against teams around us

warnock my mom

he did a fantastic job on the left, a job that MGP should have been doing

[Steve]

I thought we were ok, just missing an out and out striker I think Derbs/Roque/Benni could have had a brace for us had they been fit.

RE Gamst playing him is the only way he'll return to any sort of form whether we like it or not, he knows he's in a bad patch listen to the anguish in his voice every time he misses/messes up.

[thenodrog]

Here goes another country heard from: thoughts in no particular order;

Gamst, nothing to say about him. I'm not scapegoating him, but no one could ever convince me he played well today. If I was the boss, I'd make a pretty penny off him in Jan. Warnock had the his best game in a rovers shirt that I've ever seen. He was fantastic.

warnock my mom

he did a fantastic job on the left, a job that MGP should have been doing

Do you two not think that MGP was not a major contributory factor in Warnocks performance?

[ABBEY]

The silly defence cost us 2 points...

Friedel [ 6 ] - Some great save, but one silly pass nearly cost us.

Ooijer [ 5 ] - always lost position, does not have pace to cope with opposite ML, and where is him when we lose second goal?

Samba [6 ] - Some good defence, some silly pass, he always scare me when he start to dribble and finally cause some silly pass / loss the ball.

Nelsen [ 6 ] - Some good defence, some worst defence

Warnock [ 7 ] - always lost position, does not have pace to cope with opposite- 6 point. hand in a goal - one more point

Emerton [ 7 ] - some silly defence and pass but give us a draw

Tugay [ 6 ] - I heard him tell us to "come on" and give motive to ours.

Mokoena [ 6 ] - OK. But nothing special.

Pedersen [ 7 ] - great passing. I think he play ok today.

Roberts [ 8 ] - great dribbles, Fulham's defence cannot handle him.

Bentley [ 7 ] - provide pressure to Fulham's defence.

Reid - not play long enough to comment

Mccathy - not play long enough to comment

In first half we play 4-5-1 with no target men but Hughes has forgotten and the player always pass high ball to roberts. As a result roberts always head the ball to no one. Luckily Hughes remember that we are 4-5-1 and does not have target men after half time and ask player to pass the ball but not high ball.

I think we draw luckily. It seems that Hughes never change his tactic no matter we are 0-10 down or 1-2 down. There are several time in this season we get a draw or a win finally because of our passion but I question if it will happan always. Other manager will change tactic immedietely but not hughes.

warnock? lost position and cant cope?...bloody hell maty he was friggin fantastic yesterday///are you on drugs?

peds? great passing??

1st half? our main player got injured ..doh!

draw lucky??? get out of here we should of won

hughes??no tactics..jesus h christ hes become a top manager

dont know if ive misread what you typed but this seems the stoooooooopidst post ive read in in years.

[Eddie]

Do you two not think that MGP was not a major contributory factor in Warnocks performance?

I agree with you there. MGP play well, but he played very intelligently. His drifting inside caused them all sorts of problems and freed up the space that Warnock thrived off of.

[Steve]

I thought he did well should maybe have scored with that header, without MGP on the park I think Warnock would have had an ordinary game.

MGP created the space for Warnock

[RoyRover]

This was a game that we really should have won. The first half was a dire affair, with neither side doing much. We started to boss the game for the last 15 minutes of the half and took this momentum into the second half, which we totally dominated, created enough chances to win two games and ended up drawing. Stephen Warnock had a great game (surely he is a better option at left back than Wayne Bridge?), as did Bentley who always looked dangerous when he ran at their defence. Emerton had a fine game also and was rewarded with a goal. I was particularly happy about Jason Roberts performance, he had a lot do in his first game back and he was very impressive. Pedersen had a better game in my opinion, although he is obviously lacking in confidence at the moment. He had two good chances to score, but couldn't take them.

Fulham's first goal could have been avoided if Samba hadn't been messing around with the ball on the touchline. We should have won this easily and it's games like this that we need to win, if we want to finish in the top six. It was also good to see Reid making a return, even if was only for two minutes.

[Jan]

I don't know why they don't sack Hughes, bring in Rover6 to manage the team (that way at least he'll get to a game) and he can play the youth team against Villa.

By the way Treacy's Irish, not "home grown".

Unfortunately you choose the one time to criticise Rover6 that he's actually right, and thus make yourself look foolish in the process. I agree he doesn't see games and tends to pick based on internet reports, but when he's right, he's right. I wouldn't have Pedersen near the squad at the moment- he's causing all sorts of trouble. Warnock looks much better with dunny in fron of him, and so do we.

[LDRover]

I know he's a big fans' favourite but we shouldn't be blinded to Samba's occasional mistakes. He gave the ball away for the first goal and got away with trying to be a bit clever on other occasions thanks to covering team mates.

Yes, he's done great for us so far but if Ooijer or Gamst had been responsible for the mistake that led to the first goal they'd have been pilloried on here. Let's hang fire before we afford him legendary status, he's good and potentially could be one of the best but he's not there yet.

Both our centre halves have got a game on against Villa, if we come away with a clean sheet in that one they'll deserve all the plaudits.

[thenodrog]

Unfortunately you choose the one time to criticise Rover6 that he's actually right, and thus make yourself look foolish in the process............................... I wouldn't have Pedersen near the squad at the moment- he's causing all sorts of trouble. Warnock looks much better with dunny in fron of him, and so do we.

Ditto! Now you are making yourself look foolish Jan. With MGP in front of him and Dunny suspended Warnock had his best game of the season by far!

Have a look at the poll above, take a deep breath and stop letting your prejudice against MGP get in the way of clear thought.

[G Somerset Rover]

Good entertaining second half, and even though it was a pretty dire first half we still would have been a few goals to the good should we have had Benni, Derbs or RSQ to get on the end of some beautiful balls in from Stevie Warnock. Second half I can only remember three Fulham attacks of which they scored on two occasions. We had so much more possession and our domination was at times frightening. I think that if we could have kept it at 1-1 for slightly longer then we could have won the game comfortably. As for MGP he was quite infuriating in possession yesterday, but then again Tugay was just as guilty at giving the ball away. All in all we have to look back at this game as two points dropped, but had we known that we'd have been one down and two - one down at stages in the game then we'd probably have been delighted with a point. The next two matches are massive games where we have a great chance of taking six points.

[den]

I know he's a big fans' favourite but we shouldn't be blinded to Samba's occasional mistakes. He gave the ball away for the first goal and got away with trying to be a bit clever on other occasions thanks to covering team mates.

Yes, he's done great for us so far but if Ooijer or Gamst had been responsible for the mistake that led to the first goal they'd have been pilloried on here. Let's hang fire before we afford him legendary status, he's good and potentially could be one of the best but he's not there yet.

Both our centre halves have got a game on against Villa, if we come away with a clean sheet in that one they'll deserve all the plaudits.

I disagree LDRover. He is there now and he is one of the best. We've had players in the past who look good in the first few games, until people start to pick up on their weaknesses. I don't see a weakness in Samba, really, I don't.

As for his occassional mistakes, show me someone who doesn't make some mistakes.

[modes98]

As for his occassional mistakes, show me someone who doesn't make some mistakes.

He didn't have one of his amazing games yesterday. He made 2 glaring errors with the ball but purely because he took too long deciding what to do and as you say all players do that. The more worrying bit was how often he was dragged out to the right back position to cover for Ooijer who just seemed unable to do the defensive part of his role. Even brett was legging it back to double up with Ooijer.

[waggy]

i thought the game was excellent,spoilt by the officials who do not know the rules.

the ATTACK on benni was a RED

the penalty was a joke,kamara ran across nelson when he was about to clear,no one claimed and the ball moved forward to warnock!!

rovers first was a mile offside!!

foolham 2nd was even further offside!!

foolham players were lucky not to walk.

that said i thought we played brilliant football,kept possesion well and should have mullered tham,jason roberts played well

[Flopsy]

I agree totally with Wagster, and I thought Bentley deserved a card for his dive, but so did a number of Fulham players

[den]

The more worrying bit was how often he was dragged out to the right back position to cover for Ooijer who just seemed unable to do the defensive part of his role. Even brett was legging it back to double up with Ooijer.

Why was that worrying? A centre half's job is to cover the full backs and a wingers job is to help the full back also. That should happen as a matter of course, in any team. Good play I reckon.

[LDRover]

I thought Ooijer was excellent yesterday especially going forward (which I thought I'd never say).

The run and pass for Bentley in the second half was magnificent, shame Bentley was caught between shooting and passing.

[waggy]

and the flick when he ended 2 yds out at the foolham end

[BrianPotter]

Thought the first half was pretty poor, although we still knocked the ball around quite well and put a couple of good moves together. To me there was a visible gap in class between the two sides throughout the game, we were on a different level than them. Second half things got going and we really should have won the game easily in the end - we wasted a lot of possesion and chances, but with only one recognized striker in the line up that was to be expected. Not sure how Sanchez saw a draw as a fair result though, Rovers were the better side by a considerable margin.

One thing that is starting to stand out to me this season is that we are now a very very good side, not in any way punching above our weight in terms of league position or results as we have done previously. The level our performances and general quality of our football is at a level that you would expect from a top side.

On top of this we must remember that depending on how you view the line up we had no fewer than six first team players missing: Dunn, Benni (from 4 mins), Santa Cruz, Derbyshire, Savage and Reid. That just highlights the work Hughes has put into building a quality squad.

Going back to the class thing, having seen most of the weekends football is anybody else starting to notice the huge gap in class that is starting to appear between the top 8 or so teams and the rest? Its almost as though the PL is breaking into two halves. Whilst its ok for us as we are lucky enough to be in the top tier of teams at the moment, sureley this cant be good for the league in the long term?

[CAPT KAYOS]

He didn't have one of his amazing games yesterday. He made 2 glaring errors with the ball but purely because he took too long deciding what to do and as you say all players do that. The more worrying bit was how often he was dragged out to the right back position to cover for Ooijer who just seemed unable to do the defensive part of his role. Even brett was legging it back to double up with Ooijer.

interesting comments modes.

The way I saw it is there appeared to be a lot of rotation with players trying to create space possibly because of the injury to Benni being enforced, but I suspect it was because of the five man midfield (which I hate) as we saw similar in the other games we have played it.

I also see it as two points lost with they way we played - however would have been interesting to see if we had have gone two up front if the situation with Roque had not arisen.

Don't know what it is with Fulham, I always fear the worst before playing there but then we tend to play fairly well - suspected a draw before the match hence my feeling of two points lost and given the circumstances is a fairly decent result.

Soft goals conceded again, but as soon as I head Mike Dean was reffing I just knew we would have a penalty against us - which IMO was not a penalty but then they should have had one just after. Both ours and their goals where offside regardless of inactive crap or not.

Samba - had is worst game for us and I thought Nelsen was pretty poor.

Pedersen - thought he did ok but you can certainly see the loss of confidence and just what has happened to his deliveries crossing, freekicks, corners - all poor.

Emerton and Warnock - outstanding - Roberts the same but as everybody has said he is no finisher

Bentley played fairly well but does not help us in his free role - and please Hughes stop playing him up front.

OOjer - thought he did ok - again considering what I saw as a lot of rotational positional play.

Tugay and Mokoena where average imo.

Brad his usal Mr Dependable

Annoying aspect for me - our lack of numbers again when we are attacking and around the box, and when we did why the hell where they all stood underneath the bar or in the 6yd box and why do we always have to seem to think about what to do - we should have made their keeper work harder than we did for the amopunt of possesion we had.

[RevidgeBlue]

Think I'm going to have to add Fulham to the list of "Give it a miss" away grounds along with Newcastle. Last time I went, it was a cracking view at the side, this time they seemed to have built in some extra temporary seating behind the goal and I was so far off to the side in one corner that I was nearer the river than the pitch! Couldn't see much either at the far end or at the end nearest us as everyone stood up whenever there was any action, blocking the view.

A right rip off for 30 notes.

From what I could see, it was a desperately disappointing first half from both sides, we dominated most of the posession but didn't show any urgency or cutting edge whatsoever. We were just playing the ball about as if we were 3-0 up instead of at 0-0.

Annoyingly, once we went one down to what looked a very soft penalty from our limited vantage point, we showed a completely different attitude and it was an infinitely better second half. We should really have won the game comfortably. However to give Niemi credit he pulled off a string of decent saves.

So 2-2 it was eventually and whilst on one level it was a decent point after coming from behind twice, I think it was actually two points dropped. I thought Fulham were extremely poor and I think the majority of the sides in the top eight will be going there and picking up a relatively easy three points.

[OscarRaven]

Annoying aspect for me - our lack of numbers again when we are attacking and around the box, and when we did why the hell where they all stood underneath the bar or in the 6yd box and why do we always have to seem to think about what to do - we should have made their keeper work harder than we did for the amopunt of possesion we had.

If we had gone into this 4-4-2 we would have two more points now (with an extra striker on the bench). 4-5-1 was a poor choice against Fulham.

Now Hughes is the best manager we have had in a long time and I am in no way detracting from his great achievements at this club but yesterday he got it wrong for me.

Although pleased with the result given we played with only Roberts up front, second choice central midfielders and an out of postion defender @ right back.

[den]

If we had gone into this 4-4-2 we would have two more points now (with an extra striker on the bench). 4-5-1 was a poor choice against Fulham.

Now Hughes is the best manager we have had in a long time and I am in no way detracting from his great achievements at this club but yesterday he got it wrong for me.

Although pleased with the result given we played with only Roberts up front, second choice central midfielders and an out of postion defender @ right back.

Which extra striker Oscar? The only other one I can think of is Richters, who isn't, as yet, up to it. As for us going in with 4-4-2, we wont know how that would have worked out, but the possibility is that we would have been even more exposed to Fulham's attacks.

[tcj_jones]

I don't think that MGP had a particularly bad game yesterday. He filled the space between the front two and the midfield well, at times, and played some neat passing. To be fair to him, the way we set up and the way Warnock bossed the wing yesterday, running the line wasn't so much his responsibility. He played quite well when he drifted inside.

[Ozz]

Indeed considering the fact that barring the 3 minutes when Benni had two knees we had only one striker available, and he had just had a couple of months off injured. I think if Roque and Benni had played yesterday, we could have cruised it despite the Refs inconsistencies and our full backs narcolepsy.

Need to batter Villa on Wednesday to get back into the groove and remain contenders at the top of the table.