[Archived] Fulham Vs Rovers

[thenodrog]

We did have 3 chances-----Di Santo's obviously, Chimbonda missed a sitter near the end and Kalinic could have got a pen on another day. Problem is Fulham created scored more.

Corrected for you 47er.

[LeftWinger]

I'm sure most people on here must suffer from some football form of Bi-Polar. We beat Bolton and people go overboard with optimism and then we lose to Fulham and people are suicidal. Think people need to find some kind of middle ground. We've picked up 3 points from the last two away games - that's not bad. We'll win at weekend and some people will start thinking 5th is possible.

[T4E]

We were alright first half, dominant without creating much. The first two goals were sucker punches either side of half time. After that we were @#/?.

Nevermind, move on. Saturday is winnable.

[jim mk2]

I'm sure people will press the little green button in the corner for you to make you feel even better.

This obviously means alot to you but as someone said, quite frankly my dear I couldn't give a damn.

The reality is you're about as welcome here as a slug in a lettuce.

The reactions to the past 2 matches demonstrate perfectly the polarity of views among fans about the manager and the state of the club at present.

The Stoke match should be interesting because for all their success last season and the beginning of this term Stoke aren't playing particularly well and there is much disquiet among their fans about Pulis and his methods.

Big game for both clubs.

[LeChuck]

I'm sure most people on here must suffer from some football form of Bi-Polar. We beat Bolton and people go overboard with optimism and then we lose to Fulham and people are suicidal.

Maybe in a day or two people will 'level out' a little bit.

We were easily the best team in the first half, but we paid the price for not taking our chances whilst we were on top.

I think we definitely missed Sam last night too. We've come back from a goal down quite a few times this season but we didn't ever seem in danger of doing it last night.

[thenodrog]

I think we definitely missed Sam last night too. We've come back from a goal down quite a few times this season but we didn't ever seem in danger of doing it last night.

Anyone think we'd have done better with 4-5-1?

[tcj_jones]

Personally, I thought Grella was very good first half. The way he closed the Fulham midfield down meant that we constantly won the ball back almost as soon as we gave it away. He did fade in the second hal though.

We also badly missed N'Zonzi's height in the middle.

[Plastic Head]

having seen the goals on sky this morning...

1st goal - Robinson, no excuse being beaten at near post. Too many goals go in that shouldn't.

2nd goal - Deflection or not, Dempsey should never have been able to steal in where he did.

3rd goal - Keith, what were you doing?

our away form/results are pathetic. teams must love it when we come to town, easy three points. We never seem to be edged out in a game, we get thumped for 3 and 4.

learn how to defend for petes sake

2nd goal - Keith, what were you doing. He followed Dempsey's run to 12 yards out (a miracle in itself), but then stopped. Watching the ball again.

[thenodrog]

2nd goal - Keith, what were you doing. He followed Dempsey's run to 12 yards out (a miracle in itself), but then stopped. Watching the ball again.

2nd goal not Andrews responsibility it was Jacobsen who allowed Dempsey to run straight past him.

3rd goal was Keith Andrews being 'turned' through being too weak.

Incidentally I think once Nelsen had gone to ground that Samba was too late to react and left a huge gap for Nevland to run into. Just 2/3 paces forward and he'd have got the block in.

[den]

Anyone think we'd have done better with 4-5-1?

I said before Drog, - it's not so much the team tactics, as the performance from the guys out on the pitch. If they perform poorly, we'll lose.

[Blue blood]

Tired? He's only 20!

Can anyone remember when a player would play on Saturday, then on Wednesday then again on the following Saturday

To be fair I think we're forgetting how young and inexperienced N'Zonzi is. 20 isn't that old, especially when your football has been played in the second tier in France. Coming to the Premiership is a massive step up. Asking him to be the main man defensively whilst adjusting to arguably the best league in the world, is a big, big ask - and that's before you factor in coming from another country as well.

No one expected N'Zonzi to turn out as well as he has done, he was meant to be a squad player this season. If it means he's rested a bit so too much pressure isn't heaped upon him, then I'll be ok with that. Long term I think we've got a good un and I don't want him to burn out/struggle because too much was heaped on him too soon. There's loads of young footballers who have too much responsibility put on them too soon and fade away.

Failure to capitalize on the first half was pivotal. The problem with playing Di Santo AND Roberts in attack is that they aren't natural finishers and don't complement each other that well. They'll both use their strength to bring others into play, but we need someone up there who can finish as well (e.g. McCarthy).

Agree. Think this is a poor pairing. They don't compliment each other at all. Roberts is a poor man's Di Santo - without the potential to improve or the resale value - and he can't head the ball. Playing both of them makes us very one dimensional, especially as our problem all season has been sticking the chances away.

The first half was exactly how you'd want your team to perform away from home. We kept posession in good areas of the pitch, passed the ball along the floor and created chances. Away from home against a side as defensively sound as Fulham, you're not going to create numerous glaring opportunities to score, and it's vital that, when you are gifted one, you put it away (Di Santo). Just as importantly, however, the way we won the ball back when we did give it away was absolutely outstanding (thanks largely to Grella). It meant that Fulham couldn't get their passing game going, nor string more than a couple of passes together at a time. Unfortunately we suffered a sucker punch right at the close of the half that was conmpletely against the run of play.

Encouraging to hear. We are capable of playing some good stuff and clearly things are far from all bad at the moment, even with a reshuffled team. I think Emerton not playing was a bigger loss than N'Zonzi - wherever he plays we get a decent performance and he brings balance to the team. The worrying thing for me is our mental frailty at the moment. If we were bossing the game, then conceeded, rovers teams of old would've gritted their teeth and continued to batter them. That doesn't seem to be the case.

[Plastic Head]

I'm sure most people on here must suffer from some football form of Bi-Polar.

Not me, it was just a misunderstanding in the toilets.

[RibbleValleyRover]

That is ridicilous. Imo we have one of the strongest squads in a long time. We have a very young and exciting squad with prospects like Kalinic and Hoilett. We have very good back four and good depth in the midfield region.

I strongly disagree with that, one creative player in the whole squad, stop him and you stop the team.

[USABlue]

We seriously lack concentration away from home, so we start to concede a lot of goals once we go 1-0 down. However, when you look at our home form, we are the complete opposite there. Witnessed by our fightback against Villa, Portsmouth and Burnley. Even at Man City we fought back really well and were unlucky not to equalise. So just because it seems we lack effort away, doesn't mean the team shows no effort at all.

Oh ok then. Hurray for 50% effort. Silly me for not looking at it that way.

[ptholt]

Took my eldest to his first premier league game last night, what a game, no doubt he will tell his class mates today and come home a chelski fan probably lol.

Just a couple of observations from what was jeckyll and hyde football from both teams last night -

Why when loosing do we make one pass forward, 3 sideways then all the way back to robbo/nelson to then hoof it up the pitch down a well protected channel, such negativity was scary and all it did was leave jay and di santo chasing ghosts, outnumbered, frustrated and largely pretty damn useless.

Why does robbo have to take every free kick inside our half and lump it into the box, it gets a little predictable and it hardly seems to be paying off from what ive seen. How many more times can we take a corner and in 3 balls its back with robbo!

If like last night you loose the midfield battle and cant play through it and have failed all night to play over it, surely you go wide and round the outside, problem being of course we had no one capable of going wide on the pitch, so instead of rejuventing the midfield, we brought on 2 strikers to replace those who had spent the evening chasing long balls, this seemed a totally bizarre choice to me, we could hardly get the ball to the strikers anyway, so why bring on two others we could hardly get the ball to when the game was going on wayyyyy behind them :s

I also have this bugbear about di santo, hes had little or no premier league experience before joining us, he looks to have some flair, some pace but not exactly what you would call an eye for goal, hes almost definately destined to return to chelsea, yet we persist in blooding him in the premiership with four weeks left on his loan, surely we should be spending this time to get our new 6m striker up to premier league speed whos yet to play a full premier game (peterborough carling cup his only full game i think?) surely at some point he needs to take di santo place as come jan its not really the time to try and get him up to speed/strength especially when you look at how di santo has coped getting since the start of the season....

Lastly, thank god i hear you cry, under Mark hughes we kept hearing how fit our players were, how they were one of the fittest in the prem, they could run all match, chase the game all day etc etc er what happened there then, last night we gave away so many second balls, free headers i thought we had turned into a footballing charity!

sorry mini rant over..

[Exiled in Toronto]

How could we have so much possession in the first half and create so little? - quote from my wife who watched with me.

My answer was as follows:

Apart from Dunn, we have no midfielders who can create anything, either for themselves or for the strikers. Leaving aside Dunn, our entire midfield squad will be lucky to score more than 5 league goals between them this season. That then places a huge burden on the strikers to either create for themselves or create better passing opportunities for the midfielders, which all 4 failed to do. Add to that we are dodgy at the back and the outcome is last night.

Di Santo clearly has skill and works hard, but a striker he ain't. No goal threat whatsoever. Roberts needs a Benni to be worth a place. The midfield did alright first half but I do think part of the problem is the lack of intelligent running from the forwards - they rarely lose their markers and only show for the ball by coming short. Grella had an excuse for tiring in the 2nd half, it being his first full game for several decades; not sure what's the excuse for the other 3 though. The way to nullify Dunny is to crowd him as, while he has the skill to beat one or sometimes 2 men, after that it runs away from him. I think Roy sussed him.

[Tris]

The reality is you're about as welcome here as a slug in a lettuce.

And you have asked how many MB members about this reality??? Erm, so just yourself.

How was your spell on mod-watch? I hear your next misdemeanor will result in a permanent ban. Can't come soon enough IMO

[TimmyJimmy]

Real bummer - I missed the game. I was working within a couple of miles of the ground but got delayed and missed the damn match. Also missed it on the telly. I'm therefore in no position to comment except on what others have said.

For me I think we have one good permutation from the dozens of squad players we have and that was the team that played the second half against Portsmouth. We don't necessarily need to play that formation but those are the players we should put on the park to represent us.

Diouf and Peds are well past their Use By date. Emo is a worry, we just get him back firing on all cyclinders and his knees gone again. If you take him and Nzonzi out of the side we don't have an awful lot left to sub them with. Benny sounds like he's off in January and Hoilett's already gone judging by recent performances.

Looking on the positive side, this was a defeat away from home, so whilst disappointing (he says with typical english understatement) it's not wrist slittingly catastrophic. We need to sort Di Santo's contract out and buy midfielders (lots and lots and lots of them) in January.

I think our main problem right now is that the players have one eye open for the mistakes of team mates and don't take a risk just in case they're needed to cover. Call it confidence if you want but the lack of confidence is in the players around them not in themselves. We need to field those players who make as few mistakes as possible and that was the second half team against Portsmouth (IMO).

[cesus]

I think Robinson has got away lightly off most on here, we were well on top in the 1st half in my opinion in complete control. Fulham had a chance after a misjudged lunge from Nelson and the shot is straight at Robinson and no one can deny that the shot isn't STRAIGHT at Robinson, for christ sakes if he stood still it would have hit is foot and come out. That really lifted Fulham and they didn't look back before that they couldn't string two passes toegther. I know we were spoilt with Friedel but Robinson simply doesnt make enough saves, before Wigans destruction on Sunday Robinson had the worst shot to goals conceded ratio in the league. Well I suppose he has gone 2 games without being beaten from a zillion yards out!

[DP]

Not quite so dismayed today as I was last night.

Good solid performance first half without being spectacular, but as someone else pointed out, exactly the kind of away performance you want and we looked good for sneaking a win. Grella looked like a new signing, snapping at the heals of the opposition and spraying some decent balls about. But, that was about it..... sucker punch before half time and the performance after that was woeful, and inexcusable

I'll give Fulham some credit for being very organised and defensivley solid, but the reality is our players pretty much gave up at 1-0, and certainly at 2-0. Instructions from behind the trenches perhaps? "Have a go but if we go behind may as well save yourselves for Saturday... got that down as 3 points whereas this was just the 1, and we got 2 extra Sunday so it's alright"

[roversmum]

A traveller. Boarded the coach in the pouring rain with survival kit and a bag of stuff for Miss Roversmum who was meeting us at the ground. Oh - and Mr Roversmum. Returned in the pouring rain at around 4am with Mr Roversmum, remnants of the survival kit and without bag of stuff which we had given to Miss Roversmum.

Had some sort of nasty dream in between. Cross doesn't even begin to cover it.

Went something like this: Found our corner in the Disabled Supporters Area, jolly cold and howling gale round ears. Some disbelief at the team lineup, but hey. First half was all Rovers, about halfway through I said to Miss Roversmum, that sooner or later Fulham would break and the ball would be in the net. Guess what happened? Second half, expecting more of the first half industry from Rovers coupled with a goal or two. No chance.

I have in the past defended against continual allegations of what is known as "hoofball", but never have I seen it on this scale. The only relief was when the ball nestled in the back of Robinson's net on a further two occasions. (Keith, what the dickens were you doing?). Observation: after about three 'hoofballs' it dawned on me that this was a total waste of time, as Fulham won them all with ease. Therefore, in my very humble opinion, what, why and how? What the dickens were we doing? Why didn't somebody (yes, YOU, Macca) notice that it wasn't working and either put N'Zonzi on - he can at least win balls and pass them to somebody - and/or put Samba up front to win the balls; How (Macca)could you let it go on and on and on - and then put Benni (who could hardly have been less interested in the proceedings)on? At least young Kalinc tried.

The only reason a team resorts to lumping the ball forward at such a stage is because when you're 1-0 down and you haven't been able to break a team down, you resort to getting the ball forward as quickly as you can, so you can win corners or free kicks in the final third and try and exploit them from that. I'm not saying it's a smart thing to do or that it works,

I take your point, Miker, but - well, just but...

Tris you didn't appear on here when we won at Bolton! We should have won it in the first half which we totally dominated but as the commentator said-that goal on half-time knocked the stuffing out of us. Very disappointing but these days happen. I feel very sorry for all Rovers supporters who travelled all that way.

Me too - oh, wait...

I'm sure most people on here must suffer from some football form of Bi-Polar. We beat Bolton and people go overboard with optimism and then we lose to Fulham and people are suicidal. Think people need to find some kind of middle ground. We've picked up 3 points from the last two away games - that's not bad. We'll win at weekend and some people will start thinking 5th is possible.

Not really. Fulham were exceptionally poor in most of the first half and I don't feel it was wrong to expect a result. Was it the old thing of expecting to grab a couple of goals (after half time) and win without effort due to Fulham's shocking play in the first half? Or were the team comfortable with the tactics?

By the way, not seen it mentioned, but did anyone notice a crafty punch by Roberts in the side of the ribs of an opposition player, it was next to the dug out, in the second half. Don't know what happened before but think it was retaliation to something.

I can't express my feelings. Angry, furious (not suicidal though - the beauty of Fulham is that there is always the river nearby for those who feel the need).

Pah

[waggy]

watched the game from my usual bar stool and 1st half we mullered them,they score with there 1st usefull attack/robbo/spit/grella all to blame.oh to have a player like duff,dunny was negated and we struggled,macdonald showed why he belongs in division 3,pathetic substitutions,why he took both our centre forwards of i'll never know,di santo lovely player,but could not score in pasha.roberts huffs and puffs,and bloody u-tube is grabbi re-incarnated

[den]

Thanks mum. Always appreciate your reports.

[dixonbrfc]

having paid through the teeth to go to this game!and 1 hell of a long drive, i was initiall quite impressed in the first half with the way we managed to keep the ball quite well. but i do think our midfield yesterday was exceptionally bad! fulham totally bypassed it throughout the second half, grella is on the pitch to tackle and all he seems to do it punt the ball out of play, dunn is never going to have the same effect playing in a midfield like that, he didnt have the freedom to attack. but in the second half whatever mcdonald said at half time was completely ignored by every player, we turned very lazy and fulham found it far too easy to break us down! i couldent pick a player who stood out as "good" for us yesterday. and can someone please explain why we change our tactics so much after the bolton game? ohh well bring on stoke!

[4ever&ever]

Fulham had a chance after a misjudged lunge from Nelson

I noticed 2nd half that Nelson had a few of these, often leaving us very vulnerable or leading to a goal.

He was superb in the 1st half but was at fault for the 1st goal and another one in the 2nd half that left one of their strikers with a 1v1 which he tucked just wide.