As Lee Dixon pointed out on MOTD2 Duff was on the wrong side crossing with his weaker foot in the first half - they showed 3 or 4 pretty poor crosses from him to illustrate. Things improved for him in the second. I sat down in late June and looked at the fixtures and thought the first 10 were all reasonable (with the exception of City) and I fully expected us to come out of them with 15 and maybe even 18 points. Well, City will take us half way through that run and after that match we will most probably still have just 2 points and maybe even be bottom of the league. I honestly can't seeing us having more than 6 or 8 points now from those first 10 games given our current inability to take advantage from set pieces or, crucially, score. That will be a quarter of our season gone and we will have, at best 8 points. That's not good. Okay - I'll give Ruiz 5 games before I make any further judgement on him. It's just I was expecting something so much more polished.
I've been thinking about Dixon's comments. I rate him as a pundit - I remember in the great escape season, he consistently stuck to his belief that we would stay up, apparently getting lots of stick from Hanson, Shearer, etc behind the scenes as a result. Generally, he's a man who knows what he's talking about. While I couldn't argue with his examples of poor crossing, I don't think that Duff's 'weaker' right foot is particularly weak. He's one of the more two-footed players around at the moment in my opinion. I'm happy to see Duff playing on the left, but from what I've seen this season and before I don't see him being on the right as our problem. But, working on the assumption that Dixon may have a point, how about switching Duff to the left for Thursday and bringing Riise the Younger into the starting line up on the right? Whatever his other shortcomings, I've always felt that the ability to swing in a well placed and well timed cross was Riise's biggest strength. I know he played for the reserves prior to the international break, so presumably he's fit and available again. If Davies was fit, he'd also be a good candidate for that role. If Dempsey partners Zamora up front (with Ruiz, of course, cup-tied), that would give us two good headers of the ball to get on the end of the resulting crosses. Sa would, presumably, be another good option for that strategy, possibly coming off the bench to allow one of the starting strikers a rest before Sunday. Just a thought.
FFC Totally agree If there was a man of the match,it had to be Demps,but will we still have him in Jan
Morning all. Like everyone else I am feeling frustrated and fed up this morning. My summary of the match would be pretty much the same as everyone else's ie. a good goal from Bobby, good performances from Clint, Duff and Sidwell, a surprsingly competent performance from Kelly but not much else good to say. I agree with the Ruiz supporters - ie. we have to give him more time but I also agree that its going to be a long hard season if we can't do better than drawing with Blackburn at home. I don't know whether its the players or Jol or a combination of the 2 but things need to improve and improve quickly. In terms of the points we need I tend to look at it in a different way. If you compare the 4 games we have played this season with the same fixtures last season (ie. the teams and locations not the timing) we have come off worse this season in all of them except 1 - the draw with Villa. Last season we drew with Newcastle and Wolves away and beat Blackburn at home. Therefore we got 6 points out of the same 4 fixtures not 2. I know this isn't an absolute science but its a depressing statistic.
I was at the game yesterday, and don't have much to add to what others have said. Ruiz obviously needs time to settle, which was to be expected. I was surprised he started. There were a few bright spots to take out of the game. Good that Bobby's back with a goal and not looking hampered by the hand injury like he was in earlier games. If he's going to play as a lone striker then he needs to spend less time in wide positions. There was a ridiculous moment late in the game when he took it upon himself to take a corner - presumably out of frustration with how the previous 10 had turned out. Dempsey was excellent and played with real freedom - one benefit of Jol's system is that it allows Dempsey to have more of an influence on the game. If we'd taken one of our chances in the second half we'd probably all be reflecting on a decent performance this morning. I thought Kelly did well after he came on, although I'd be worried about him starting against Man City when he'll have more defending to do. I'm not panicking yet - it will take time to adjust to a new manager and a new system just as it did last season.
Nope, not at all, there's more to football than scoring goals but I do expect something more positive than in the words of the report in the Daily Mail "The 26-year-old was given a prompt welcome to English football when he was caught napping on the ball twice early on, and then proceeded to spend the remainder of the first half running around flailing his arms." Or the Telegraph "Anonymous before being subbed." Or the Independent "The £10.6m Costa Rican had a lamentable debut, unable to cope with the pace of the game and withdrawn at half-time." Interestingly as well I saw this in the Guardian: It was easy to see what Fulham lacked in their 1-1 draw with Blackburn Rovers – good service from the flanks, as their pathetic cross completion ratio of 6% shows. The use of 'inverted' wingers – left-footed Damien Duff on the right and right-footed Clint Dempsey on the left – has worked well for Fulham in recent years, but in this game it caused problems as Blackburn's defence sat deep and narrow. Duff was the main offender – rather than drifting inside or cutting back onto his stronger foot, he constantly motored towards the byline, then tamely floated a right-footed cross up into the arms of Paul Robinson. He finished with 0 completed crosses from 12 attempts, and none of his seven corners found a Fulham player.
I want to believe MJ had a chat with him today or prior to the game. On the contrary WDWW it might make him more determined. Saying that I would like to see Murphy subbed off when he is non-existent. Now who you bring to his place... I'm not the manager but we need a plan!!!
Playing Ruiz did not work but that wasnât why we didnât get 3 points yesterday. [Although if he persists in âtaking a diveâ every time thereâs a strong (and fair) tackle he wonât win many fans in the premiership, or this household] Riise was lethargic, especially in the first half. The Senderos/Hangeland experiment isnât working. And would someone please explain to Senderos that a simple pass, keeping possession, is more profitable than an aimless hoof somewhere down the centre. Murphy continued in his grumpy old man way and to boot his passing was very poor. But that wasnât why we didnât get 3 points yesterday. Set pieces were pretty awful. Corners were dreadful. Throw-ins were â well just the usual really and not very good. But that wasnât why we didnât get 3 points yesterday. Stephen Kelly was the only player to come out of the game with any credit. Possibly because, being so one footed (his right), this was his more natural side. Bobby was fine and especially in the second half was his old self. Duff was excellent at running at their defence â although agreed, his crosses were fairly poor. Kind of the same for Dembele â canât remember any of his crosses from the right getting past the first defender. So why didnât we get 3 points yesterday ? Simple answer, too few attempts on target. Itâs really not good enough to have 70% of the possession in the second half and only 2 on target. (In fact, apart from Bobby âs goal, that was it during the whole game). Itâs not as if there werenât opportunities â AJ was put through about 10 minutes from the end but, probably because it was on his left foot, didnât even get a shot away. Jol himself said there were 8 or 9 lost opportunities. In the 12 games palyed so far, take away goals scored (which are not that many), the team is averaging less than 2 shots per game on target, That's got to be down to more than just âlacking the cutting edgeâ
Cottager - absolutely spot on. For all our possession in the final third the only save worthy of note I can remember Robinson making was Dempsey's shot towards the end. Dembele in particular just needs to hit the thing sometimes. He did add impetus in the second half, but spends far too much time running with the ball at his feet not really going anywhere. Yes, Blackburn had men behind the ball, but that's no reason not to have a shot on goal. There's always the chance of a deflection.
Cottager interesting stats but yesterday we had a lot or shots that they were simply blocked. Blackburn played well defensively and didn't give us any space. Blackburn were first on the ball all first half and we were too sloppy. I disagree on Senderos. He was well positioned, did some good challenges and only one mistake, generally he was good. Regarding his passing is better than Hughes. We have to give him some time to gel with Hangeland. What about Hughes mistake against Newcastle? Hugely at fault. In any case our defense was not the reason we failed to get 3 points yesterday. Dempsey is not a winger to cross the ball and Duff needs to cut inside and bring the ball to his left. If Jol wants to attack from the flanks the current squad cannot deliver. It's ok to try but you need the players too. Once Dembele move to the side there was an improvement.
I'm just hoping Jol is not one of those stubborn managers who sticks to his ways even though everyone else can see it doesn't work. Hughes best position is Center Half not Right Back. Hughes Hangeland partnership is part of our back-bone over the last few seasons that has kept our defense solid. It maybe that Jol thinks of playing 3 at the back, since most teams don't play 2 up front, and he can afford to have Riise in a more forward position over-lapping on the left, while he pushes Duff out to the right. He has Sidwell and Murphy to hold and break forward if possible. Dempsey has a roving role to spot weaknesses in the opposition defence, while Ruiz or Dembele need to combine with Zamora and act as a midfield partner to Riise and Duff. It's a more attacking formation, but the problem I see is those back 3 are slow, so are Murphy and Sidwell, so any team that have fast mobile attacking midfielders like Man U and City, and can get behind Murphy and Sidwell will cause us problems. I can't figure out why 3 managers have over looked Kelly as being the right back replacement. For me he does struggle against the top clubs, consistency is his problem, but he played well against Blackburn and has had other good games but never seems to keep his place. I wonder if he suffers from diabetes, as his energy levels seem to dip during games.
Some interesting postings on this thread. Not everyone agreeing on all points, save all of us being frustrated that we are underperfoming. A word of Duff crossing from the right in the first half - I kept wanting him to cut inside and cross with his left, but often Blackburn had a covering man to stop that. Just another though on Duff, most of my recent memories of him playing well on the right seem to be in the second half, rather than the first, but maybe one of you will correct me.
It's interesting reading everyone's comments on this game. There's such a varied take on who and what went well and what didn't. From my point of view I thought it was a big improvement from the Newcastle and Wolves game and it was a game we deserved to win. A win was vital on Sunday especially with Man City this week. Being at the bottom aint nice ! I saw signs of good improvement with Senderos, Kelly, Riise, Dempsey and Duff - Overall it wasn't a bad performance. One more goal and the win and people would have had a totally different complexion of this game (IMO) The biggest frustration was that we didn't get it ! Having said all that, I'm not looking forward to this Sunday !!
I think its only a matter of time before Fulham start winning! for me they seem to be getting better each week, and deserved a win on Sunday! once jol gets everything that he wants through to his team they will be ok!!
Probably none of you on this forum would have seen Bedford Jezzard,in my opinion the greatest C/F Fulham has ever had, Two footed,and great with his head,in those days we had crowds of 25/30thousand for home matches,and any ball within 25yds of goal the shout would go up "give it to Beddy". Those of you that are interested look up his scoring stats , half his seasons total would do me.
A positive from Sunday was Dembele's defensive qualities - a part of his game that I don't recall him ever getting any credit for. So, I think it's woth mentioning the number of times Dembele chased back (and invariably won the ball) covering Riise's backside. Not sure what he was doing over on the left but thank goodness he was because their was little other cover. He's jolly quick as well when he wants to be.
