... and what a first day! We have an excellent game without that American fella, and QPR get spanked at home! Liverpool losing heavily is a bonus, not to mention I've had a good day for Fantasy Football. I won't read too much into today's performance, it's a long season after all, but if this is a sign of things to come them I'm quietly optimistic. If we can further strengthen our squad then that would be superb. Well done to Petric, Riise, Reither, Kaca and Ruiz especially. Onwards and upwards! I bet Captain had a good day out! COYW!
Not such a good day for me at the bookies, Arsenal in particular letting me down. But in terms of Fulham, absolutely fantastic, no negatives to be found here. Ruiz was outstanding as was Kaka, Duff, Petric and Dembele. If we can get in one or two more players we could seriously begin to target the top six. 5-0 win for Fulham, 3-0 loss for Liverpool. You watching Clint?
We're on 4th, behind the West Brom/Liverpool, QPR/Swansea, Newcastle/Spurs games. 5-0 win and top of the league... but some things never change!
I'm not coming to your place ever ever again! I think most Norwich fans would like to say sorry for that performance, we were terrible, but you took advantage of that and stuffed us! Well done, I just hope we give you a better game when you come here! ILD OTBC
I certainly did! Before the game my eldest got Roy Hodgson's autograph on his programme, which we thought was going to be the high point, but it paled into insignificance once the goals started flying in. Singing 'We are top of the league', laughing at the ever-increasing margin of QPR's demise (Roscafre's description of them as 'our reserves' on the other thread was inspired), marvelling at the way Ruiz and DemPele - building on the platform Diarra was giving them - were running the show, enjoying Riise and Kacaniklic racking up the points for my Fantasy League team, standing open-mouthed at Petric's second... yeah, a good day out. And even the all-day breakfast sandwich from Tesco Express tasted great on the way home. It seems harsh to criticise, but I wasn't sure about some of Rodellega's movement when he came on. He dropped deep a couple of times when he possibly should have been pushing on. Too soon to judge him on one match - particularly one that we dominated so thoroughly, but I'm not sure about him as a centre-forward. Then again, after a game like today, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it!
I got the impression with Hugo that missing most of pre-season has not given him the time to get on the same page as every one else. He frequently looked to get into 'traditional' centre forward roles and we just weren't set up to play that way. He seemed to appreciate the fan response and looked fairly lively, so I'm not too worried about him at the moment. There was a fair bit of muttering around me when Swansea scored their fifth. Being kept off top spot by QPR... being terrible. What a world! Turned out great in the end.
Ah, but two 5-0's is perfect, Surlyc: we're above Swansea and top alphabetically, and QPR are below Norwich and bottom alphabetically. If either us or Swansea had outperformed the other we couldn't have had the double of us being top and them being bottom!
Indeed Captain, it turned out to be perfect. Another fan was telling me that on the way out; the only way to make the day more perfect really, wasn't it?
Too true! I watched the game on a stream and thought we were sure things for first on MOTD, but no, we had to endure Liverpool squander chances first. I wasn't bothered about watching QPR get stuffed before us - nice warm up! - but the Newcastle-Spurs game had nowhere near the entertainment ours did. Like you say, nothing changes!
Some things don't change.....Not only were we 4th on MOTD, apparently we only won 5-0 because Norwich were so bad. Nevermind that we dominated midfield to the degreee that we could have scored more. With punditry like that why bother? Anyhow, I can't rant at such an irrelevancy when Fulham put on a great performance and "we are top of the league". After all, some reality might return next week at OT when we might only get a draw! C O Y W
Fantastic game ... fantastic day, too. Ruiz was amazing, I thought, watching the Match Choice broadcast. Just like Dembele, it took a year for him to find his feet, but he was the MOTM, I thought, by miles. And Petric looks like a good one. That was the first chance for me to see him. One game does not a season make, but I think we'll be OK for goals once Dempsey's packed his bags and left. Clint will be happier today, too, since Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham all suffered for lack of goals. I'll bet he's gone on Monday to either of those teams. I'm hoping Arsenal so his family won't have to move. I realize Tottenham are in North London, too, but they'll suffer this year just like all teams suffer after Harry leaves.
Arsenal also has £24m to spend on Dempsey so my vote is there I think he'd have the best chance at Arsenal being the only premier league tried and test attacking mid/forward there now. Plus they would offer the Champions League football he wants.
That analysis has always bothered me. Has team ever looked good when the opposing team is just outplaying them? It's not like oh, we got smashed 5 nil, but we played really well. Were Norwich just bad, or did you make them look that bad?
The Spurs first half was abysmal to be honest, no way should it have been on before ours. The highlights of our game too were awful. The first chance they showed from us was Duff's goal, where was Riise's shot that was saved by Ruddy? Or Ruiz's lob that went just over the bar? Or Petric's curling shot that was palmed away?
