Fulham Preview

[John]

Saying the season is over is a bit premature, or possibly stupid in fact.

We maybe are not playing well enough, but there is still more than enough points to play for (to make one of the UEFA spots).

[1864roverite]

A totally inept performance IMO

All that posession and for what ?

I am flummoxed at the result but it had it written all over it in the first 15 minutes. Plenty of Rovers possession but NO end product. There was not a save in the first half from either keeper.

Very disappointed with lack of contributions from Tugay, McCarthy and Reid.

The second half was much better but having gotten a lead we go and give a silly free kick away at the death and concede an equaliser. Dont get me wrong, it had been coming from the 80th minute. At that point the defence was wide open and we should really have been caught out before the free kick.

Thats it for me, I just cannot see us taking 7th spot never mind 6th after missing two very priceless points.

Now for Riley, well words defeat me on this one. He booked Tugay for 1 tackle, likewise with Warnock. How he failed to deal with a Fulham player for a shocking tackle from behind on Reid is tantamount to seeing he despises Rovers players without any doubt. He then went onto miss several other tackles deserving of bookings by Fulham players. The man is a tosser.

[LeChuck]

Now for Riley, well words defeat me on this one. He booked Tugay for 1 tackle, likewise with Warnock. How he failed to deal with a Fulham player for a shocking tackle from behind on Reid is tantamount to seeing he despises Rovers players without any doubt. He then went onto miss several other tackles deserving of bookings by Fulham players. The man is a tosser.

You make it sound like we were hard done to!

Zurab probably should have gone in the first half, Pedersen fouled Stalteri for the goal and Ooijer wrestled Johnson to the ground in the area. Their free-kick was a bit dodgy, but overall we were definitely on the better end of the most of the decisions.

[herbergeehh]

He was ###### all the way, no one benefits from poor refereeing.

Thought Warnock had another very good game today, take notice Mr. Capello. Gamst Pedersen contributed a lot in the 2nd half, not only with the goal, but he was brilliant tracking back. Still a bit to work on overall, but another step in the right direction at least.

Bentley wasn't playing wide enough, which centralized our game too much - our best play comes from 2 on 1's on the wings.

Disappointed with the result, but City lost to Reading, hopefully Aston Villa and Pompey will lose points too.

[RevidgeBlue]

It was absolutely dire stuff again today at Ewood until the introduction of Roberts and Derbyshire after about 55 mins.

Roberts in particular made a real impact and I thought we played quite well thereafter until being robbed of two points by Old mother Riley after Samba made what was in my view a perfectly fair interception.

That said we only had ourselves to blame for missing a number of decent opportunities in the last twenty minutes to kill off a quite woeful Fulham outfit.

Overall though, just not good enough over the 90 minutes. Why can't we just get at teams from the off?

McCarthy - sell and sell quickly. Talk of a new contract for him on the basis of his efforts this season is ludicrous unless it's purely to realise a better asking price. Where was he meant to be playing today? Up front? In midfield? In the event he did neither one nor the other. Useless.

Tugay - It's getting faintly embarrassing now to see an all time Rovers legend who was once such a great player so far off the pace. He would probably benefit more from a season or two in somewhere like La Liga where the pace is slower to wind up his career. Unfortunately the pace of the Premiership seems to be well beyond him now.

Bentley - Scotty will probably be on my case but I thought this was yet another very disappointing performance from our star man in comparison to what we know he is capable of. I wonder if contract negotiations are taking their toll?

MGP - thought he fully deserved his MOM award - great goal - covered an astounding amount of ground, and made one unbelievable last ditch block after he was the only player with the legs to get back after an attack broke down, and he had been one of the furthest players forward.

Is the season over? Well an automatic UEFA spot has looked well beyond us for quite a while even before today and now we're only realistically playing for an intertoto berth. Even that looks an extremely long shot on today's evidence given it would require us to finish above Villa.

[RevidgeBlue]

P.S. I thought Fulham were the worst Premiership outfit I've seen for many a season and were unrecognisable from the team we played at Craven Cottage in November.

Under Sanchez the football wasn't the prettiest but at least you knew his team would battle until the death. Under Woy they seemingly don't battle and don't play football either. They're gone imo.

Bullard might be a decent signing for someone when they go down.

[den]

MOTM?

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Poor game,poor atmosphere,a poor day all round.Two precious points dropped yet again at home that I fear are bound to come back and bite us on the arse in the end.

Again,the question has to be asked ad finitum why the hell are we incapable of performing anywhere near to our true ability in the first half of a game,and please, dont blame it on the infamous ruddy 'Ewood micro-climate'

We Just dont possess enough guile,craft or even desire to break these teams down at times......story of the season for me.

[grizfoot]

MOTM?

I'd give it to Pedersen. But he was the best out of a really poor showing.

We always slip up against the lesser teams. Think we are going to have to go on some unbelievable run to finish 5th now.

Thought the wall should have possibly done more to stop the free-kick. But it was a brilliantly taken by Bullard. Fulham use to try and football at least, now they just lob it foward ala Bolton. The guy in orange boots upfront was pacey but seemed to lack the ability to stay on his feet and control the ball.

Only Ooijer, Pedersen, Warnock & Roberts can come out of the game saying the played well.

Then again if they game had finished 1-0 we'd probably be saying we did enough to win and that's all that's important, ect.

[Paul]

Khizi just not cut out to be a right back.

The game I watched had Zurab at CH and Ooijer at RB.

The sort of afternoon which makes one question why one has already renewed the STs. God it was awful for the first hour, OK for 20 minutes, then awful again.

[Manchester Blue]

You make it sound like we were hard done to!

Zurab probably should have gone in the first half, Pedersen fouled Stalteri for the goal and Ooijer wrestled Johnson to the ground in the area. Their free-kick was a bit dodgy, but overall we were definitely on the better end of the most of the decisions.

What should Zurab have gone for?

[andrew92]

he had his arm across the player with orange boots on (dont know his name) but i think it will have only been seen by fans in blackburn end! and thankfuly not by the referee!!! but it was definately a free kick so by law a sending off but we have wasted a really good oppotunity with cuty losing!! love to see newcastle lose again though!!

[Ben-2000]

It felt like a defeat today... very disappointed... Fulham look nowhere near good enough for the prem... definately an opportunity missed today.

[frosty]

What should Zurab have gone for?

It looked like he pulled Johnson back when he would have been clean through, but it wasn't even given as a foul so it couldn't have been bad.

First half was dreadful, I thought the 1 goal would have been enough but obviously not. Roberts had a couple of chances after our goal which he scuffed and Bentley messed up when shooting, he was too greedy to just square it for somebody else to tap it in.

In the end, we got what we deserved.

[T4E]

Bullard might be a decent signing for someone when they go down.

He would be THE perfect signing for us.

[Jan]

I think it says it all when I just voted for MGP for MOTM. That was for the goal and for the tackle when somoene on the right was through on goal. Otherwise the best thing of the day (apart from the Scotland win at egg-chasing) was the food in Pennants Lounge.

[Alan75]

The game I watched had Zurab at CH and Ooijer at RB.

The sort of afternoon which makes one question why one has already renewed the STs. God it was awful for the first hour, OK for 20 minutes, then awful again.

The straw that broke the camels back Im afraid.

[1864roverite]

Maybe ffan can come back and confirm this but I had a chat with a Fulham fan ten mins ago about the serious lack of away fans at the ground.

Chatting with Den before hand it was mentioned about problems with trains and coaches etc bringing them North for the game.

The lad I spoke to, big fulham fan (literally) was amazed at the lack of away support considering it was almost free travel on the train and heavily subsidised for coach travel. On a survey by fans this is how they managed to get the club to agree and had allegedly over 3500 signatures which caused the club to act. They even gave a free t shirt to accompany their £20 match tickets.

So then we have an official count of 455 away fans inside the ground I have to ask what happened to the other 3000 and odd ?

Fulhamweb.com and a fans group are astounded at the belief they were bringing some 3000 fans to Ewood but only a paltry amount turned up so where did it all go wrong ?

Are the sums wrong ?

Did the club not do enough ?

Did the fans let the club down ?

....and so on....

it might provide some interesting reading later this week (if your interested that is)

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Where there really 20,000 Rovers fans there today?...the atmosphere was the worst I've witnessed at Ewood in a long while.

Better not to criticise others support eh Roverite ...............

[S15]

Most annoying thing is we have dropped points and given them away for nothing. Fulham are down, just a complete and utter waste.

[Roar of the Rover]

Alot of people on here were comparing Santa Cruz to Shearer a while ago, where is he now? He hasn't done much at all, all he's done is score 9 goals in December, that made him look good. He's only score 1 or maybe 2 league goals at Home all season! That's not good enough.

[grizfoot]

Alot of people on here were comparing Santa Cruz to Shearer a while ago, where is he now? He hasn't done much at all, all he's done is score 9 goals in December, that made him look good. He's only score 1 or maybe 2 league goals at Home all season! That's not good enough.

Slightly harsh maybe, the majority of his goals have come away from Ewood. Never seems to play as well at home as he does away. You can't complain about his worth ethic though and to be fair isn't wasn't just him who underperfomed today.

[RevidgeBlue]

He would be THE perfect signing for us.

Don't disagree at all, I said he'd be a perfect signing for "someone" though because he'll no doubt be way out of our free transfer - 500k price range.

[rover6]

A while back I suggested that, with our paucity of capable CMs, much rested on Steven Reid in determining how our season finishes. Sadly, it seems he cannot replicate his top form, at the moment anyway, and as a result, we are not gonna finish too strongly.

I still have doubts about the extent of Reid's real ability. He's a fair player, definite starter in our team and arguably our most important CM but the comparisons he was getting with Gerrard etc. were perhaps engendered whilst he was going through a purple patch.

Maybe we expect too much from Reid? Was he hyped too quickly? I think, perhaps, yes.

[Mozzer]

i think the time when reid was compared to among our fans as our own steven gerrard was right..that season he was on fire, injuries has set him back...

maybe fans are expecting him to be that player he once was before he got injuried straight away..in my opinion he needs abit more time..