Blimey Val, you say you don't want to be a doom merchant, but you've got us not even getting nil against Norwich!
Norwich have impressed me this year, so getting a result against them is by no means a given. On paper it looks like the only game we can get points from but they have been impressive this year and have a real fighting spirit amongst their players, something we are sadly lacking. To echo Val's statement, I too do not wish to be a doom merchant, but I can't see us getting more than one point from those three fixtures.
I don't put much weight into single games , particularly just before a holiday break or at the end of the season. Players are are frequently ill-focused at these odd times of year. Generally I think the team has been improving over the the last month ... So I'm not panicking about this. Chin up, lads. There's another game next week.
I'm quite pleased about Val's predos, last time he predicted we'd lose to a newly-promoted team we smashed them 6-0!
I feel optimistic about the Norwich game and thinking of making the trip. Still believe that even the other 2 games can give us points...
The title of this thread sums up exactly how I've felt about the team recently. We've never been that consistent (except for the season we came 7th) but, as someone else has said, we've become a yo-yo team - totally impossible to predict how er're going to play from one week to the next except that it seems to go good game (Arsenal) bad game (Twente) good game (Liverpool) bad game (Swansea) bad game (Odense) good game (Bolton).....you get the picture. I just don't get how a team that can play so well sometimes play sooooooooooo badly at others. The stats about where we were this time last year and the fact that as the season goes on the players and Jol will get more used to each other (Like the players and Hughes last year) are comforting and (as discussed elsewhere) the Jan window will be very interesting but sometimes its hard to feel confident about where we're going or what we're doing.
DR, the last month has included six games, we have won two (Bolton, bottom of the league and Liverpool) drawn one (Odense, which to all of us felt like a loss) and three defeats (Twente, Swansea and a hammering at Utd, we also failed to score in all three) I'm all for optimism but it has to be confounded.
As others have said our season won't be defined against the likes of Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal or the like but against the Bolton's, Wolves, Blackburns, and so on. We have definitely slipped. Teams like Stoke are now performing more like we used to and are on the level we used to be at. The slippage is partly the Teams fault and partly Jol's - and I am pleased more and more people are now coming round to the view I first expressed in October - had we acted then we may not be in the situation we find ourself in now, but that's by the by. I think if we took 3 points from the next 3 games we'd have done about as well as we can do right now. I also think we will stay up - just - but 17th is fine from this disaster of a season - get a new Manager in during late May and let him build through the summer. With a new(ish) team, new ideas and a new direction next season could be one to look forward to.
Fulhaman disagree on the change of manager. Clearly there are players who can't drive us forward any more... AJ, BZ, Murphy, Kelly, etc. in addition that the are a year older they seem to like their ways and manners. We can be changing manager every year. I am as disappointed as any of you from last Wednesday's result but maybe will be the catalyst for radical changes. AJ should have scored at least 1, can we blame Jol for this? We are doing as well as we can given the heavy schedule we had. There are many more games to reverse the tide... Keep the faith.
Agreed Madness, a change of manager is exactly what we don't need (and even if we did sack Jol, I ask again - who would be a better candidate?) and Jol is doing what needs to be done with respects to lowering the squad's average age. This season was never going to be anything other than transitional, and with our budget and such wholesale changes in how we play (remember the squad before Jol took over had been playing the same system since Roy came in) there are plenty of mitigating circumstances. We don't want to be like the Blackburn lot, hindering our side through badgering our manager. In any case, we can whinge and philosophise all we like, but what matters is what Mo thinks. If he backs him, then we should too. COYW
My son and I will be at Stamford Bridge on Monday - looks like we'll have to get here by Shanks' Pony, no thanks then to the tube drivers. We were there earlier in the year at that Carling Cup game when the 'reserves' put on a terrific show, playing for each other and as a team. Which will be the key on Monday. Jol himself summed it up in an interview today - Jol has told his players to stick together and believe in themselves as they make the short trip to take on Andre Villas-Boas' side on Monday. "I don't think we are lacking confidence, it's about teamwork," the Dutchman said. "If you work as a team, we are good and our goal difference has shown that. That's probably been a big plus for us this season. "But that is something we destroyed on Wednesday with the five goals. If you play as a team, you don't concede goals and you always get your chances. But if you conceded early like we did, then you get tired as well and that's not what you want." If, and it's a big if, he can get that message over we have an outside chance. My only previous visit was also just after Christmas, that was 2006, when we got a 2-2 draw. Maurice Voltz got our first - he who is in the record books as scorer of the Premiership's 15,000th goal. Don't expect any records this time but I'll settle for the same result
I'm not saying jettison Jol now. I have modified that view as there are very few acceptable candidates to replace him, but what I am saying, presuming we do manage to avoid going down and end up anywhere between 15th and 17th is that Jol should go. He will have taken a team that qualified for europe and turned them into near relegation candidates. This is not progress is anyones book and by dint of this he will have clearly failed and therefore would deserve to go. Everyone - me, others on this board, the press, pundits expected Fulham to be comfortable in mid-table with no danger of relegation to worry us. That this is very unlikely to happen can be laid at the players door but they can only play to the manager's tactics - and we have all seen how flawed they can be. I agree we can clear out some of the older players along with Jol's signings who have been unspectacular to say the least in the majority of games they have played and are a drain on the wage bill and rebuild with a new manager having the whole summer to get to grips with the size of the task.
Bandit,like you i do hope i am wrong with my predictions, but i think we are playing with an 8 man team at the moment, and no matter how good the remainder are playing,in this league you need all 11 to put in a shift. draw your own conclusions which three are financially mugging the club.
Fulhaman, if anything, it seems to me that mood on this board has swung more pro-Jol than against since October. There seem to be more of defending him than there were then. As for expecting us to be mid-table, we're 13th! That's pretty mid-table in my book. I don't think anyone below 7th or 8th can think of themselves as being safe from relegation, so even if we were a bit higher than we are, we wouldn't be able to get complacent. Jol took over a team that qualified for Europe via the fair-play league, and he took over a team that has never qualified for Europe in two successive seasons. The fact that we don't look like being there next season (although there's always the FA Cup) doesn't come into it. I think your assessment of his failings doesn't stand up on the terms you lay out. The team has needed rebuilding and rejuvinating for several seasons. Roy didn't do it when he arguably should have started (although he got great results with his old-timers), Hughes didn't do it - his only substantial change in that regard was the introduction of Dembele for our beloved Gera (I'm not counting Briggs, as he wasn't anything like a regular under Hughes, or Jol for that matter). Jol has acted, and is acting to reduce the age of the team. If he didn't do this, then in a year or so we'll be in a really desperate state. He's also changing the team's style of play and while we're not the finished article yet, there are signs of progress. As others have said, we need continuity and we won't get that by changing the manager for the third year running. I don't think we're going to be in serious relegation worries by the end of the season. Even if we are, Jol has got the quality and experience to keep us safe and then deliver a much better year next season. If things aren't much better by this time next year, that's the time to think again.
When you put it like that Captain, everything looks more positive. It's just very frustrating to watch tactical incompetence at the same time.
Very true, the Captain has put a positive spin on things and viewed that way it is quite tempting to say - Hell, yeah, that's not so bad, But I am not so sure that it's not actually sleepwalking to disaster to do that. It is quite possible that Jol is a victim of circumstance and his arrival has coincided with the steepening decline in some of our more established players and I totally accept that point. I know people bang on about Briggs but from what I have seen he is completely average, nothing to get excited about. Trotta might be a different story, though. However, this has nothing to do with the tactics which, as plenty of people have pointed out on here are quite often ineffective & frustrating and sometimes totally inappropriate and baffling - not only to us but seemingly to the players as well - this is the manager's remit and, to be honest, at times we played better football under Persil than we have under Jol.
I go off for a couple of days, and all is doom and gloom! Yes, the performance was inept, but it's not one step forward, two back, just no improvement until some changes in January. We all know that sometimes the first 10 minutes can dictate how a game goes and after a few minutes Ruiz, Baird and Senderos screwed-up and that was it for the night - as most of the crowd realised at that moment. The only way of changing things would have been to bring on Zamora after 30 minutes, but I'm not sure what is going on with BZ - Bringing him on just 10 miuntes before the end sounds like he's not fully fit. I'd have also brought on Duff for Ruiz. Nothing has really changed and I will not over-react. Some of you may remember that I was expecting a minimum of just 1 point from the 4 Xmas fixtures anyway, and noted that there were other clubs with far more serious problems than Fulham. I'm giving MJ a chance in January, remembering the are a load of clubs competing to buy. If he can get them, we could have the 3-4 players we need. However, I cannot agree with the wholesale clearout now proposed by some, since that will take us back to square one, thereby increasing the risk of dropping places. If necessary, a clearout happens in the summer, but not now. I appreciate that this is a minority view so will now sit in the corner and wait for the brickbats. Looking forward to my envisaged point from Chelsea, Norwich or Arsenal. C O Y W
We definitely need strengthening up in January as well as clearing out... BZ's call in the England squad will cost him his career... Or want is left. Murphy is getting on and is causing us a problem. If you watch Giggs now and Scholes in the past they played 1 game every other week to let them recover. We need to do the same with Danny. The youngster will come better once they are given more time. Briggs is good but he needs games to get experience and exposure. Similarly for Frei, Kasami and Gecov. Let's just give time to the team and manager... Although changes have to happen!
I agree that a clearing out is needed, but I feel that it would be too much work to do it in January. I hope we can scrape through this season relying on the players we bring in and those left. Bring in a new striker to replace Zamora, and another if AJ also leaves, preferably one on loan and one permanent, a central midfielder to replace Murphy who should be demoted to the bench, and a right back. I think we should utilise Briggs more in the second half of the season to get him embedded into the team so that he can replace Riise next season. But in the summer we need a huge clearance with the likes of Duff, Davies, Riise and Kelly giving way.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL FFC 606rs. AND LETS HOPE THAT IN 2012 WE HAVE PLENTY TO CHEER ABOUT. :emoticon-0170
