Personally, I blame Simon Barker and Ian Holloway, they're the worst central midfield pairing in the PL.
Yes I thought the central defence played pretty well. Zamora was at fault for the goal. Nelsen let Jagielka go for the header that hit the bar but otherwise both he and M'bia kept Jelavic very quiet. The goal, which wasn't the defence's fault, and header apart, I don't recall much they could be blamed for. There was a goalmouth scramble we got away with but that was Nelsen and Mbia's collective fault as much as anyone else's. Cesar made a quite routine save from a free-kick and didn't have too much else to do. I don't see what Hill would have added- Zamora let Distin go, there was nothing either centre-half could do to change that. Hill is not as a good a footballer as Nelsen or M'bia who are both far more comfortable on the ball which is important for the way we play. I'd rather give Nelsen, our best defender this season, 80 minutes than give an inferior player, Ferdinand, a start and I don't understand why you would disagree with that. Ditto for Traore. He's our only left-back so if we can get a good performance out of him for 75 minutes then it's sensible to make use of him rather than have a right-footed centre-half there. It would be different if Fabio or even Dyer were fit, but they aren't. As for Hughes making excuses, they were valid.
I think I wrote before I agree he had to play Traore, due lack of good alternatives. In retrospect it probably wasn't right to play Nelsen but I wasn't criticising Hughes for making that borderline decision, but for whingeing on about how his subs were restricted, which resulted directly from the decisions he made! Both his decisions in the summer not to bring in good, not old Cb's playing in NZ, and his decision to play Traore and Nelsen when not 100% - right or wrong he took a risk, and it would be great not to have to hear him moaning that the risk didn't pay off. That he complains about having to play 10 against 11 made me puke. I think Clint organises the defense better than the others, plays as well as Nelsen at CB, and Distin should and probably would have been played offside with Clint there organising the line. has Hill got a head injury ? Heard that last week on here somewhere.
Disappointing how many of you seem to be missing some pretty glaring errors from Hughes. Think people are so fed up with all the negativity the blinkers have now been put on to only see the positivity. Hughes negativity will send us down. Why he kept Adel wide left and Hoilett through the middle until about the 70th minute is a great example of how he is unable to react to what is happeing in a game. Those around me at half time were saying that this swap needed to be made and when he finally made it both players started to have a much bigger influence. This to me is an obvious mistake by Hughes. Secondly why hasnt anyone else criticised the typically negative move of leaving 1 up front against ten men. Why not play Cisse upfront with Zamora. Can anyone name one game in which Cisse has looked remotely effective without Zamora alongside him? And Zamora does better with Cisse alongisde him. I would of taken off the ineffective Park for Cisse after the red card. Put Adel and Hoilett on either wing and really go for it. A Fulham season ticket holder mate of mine said when Hughes joined us that his cautious approach will mean we will draw games we should win and lose games we should draw and yesterdays game demonstrates that he was right.
Ooh, I'm just so frigging happy, one of my greatest passions in life has managed a 1-1 draw against a team with Phil "Xavi" Neville and Leon " Iniesta" Osman in midfield. Not only that but we managed to survive when Stephen "The Magician" Pienaar was sent off for nothing. Allelujah! Our "defence" only made a couple of basic errors which only cost us one goal, and yes when BZ is in his own penalty area he's part of the defence! Mark Hughes, spends his time on the bench bemoaning a non penalty decision instead of cajoling a formation to deal with Everton's resistance. Then I find out the biggest Count of the lot is at the match Mc "I'll take them down faster than a h..ker's knickers"Leish! Zamora is playing like I've never seen before, didn't he always get on your nerves before how he could wind up defences on his own, hold up play, influence decisions? - Haven't seen that side of him at all. Park is just Park, SWP is just SWP, Derry,Hill, Nelsen are just past it, AJ and KD - well the least said about those 2 crocks the better, Ephrahim,Onouha,Ferdinand would struggle to get into any decent Championship team and Cisse doesn't look as though he gives a ..... So leaves us with Taarabt,Hoillet,Faurlin,Mbia (gone in Jan for a month), Diakite (gone in Jan for a month),Traore and Cesar. Oh great, HAPPY,HAPPY,HAPPY - But I'll just type, it's all going to be great, everything will be alright, we've never had it so good, Mark Hughes is Moses in disguise and take TF's advice and keep taking the pills!!!!
Trouble is Danish, Hughes' excuses and all these be happy, Hughes will get it right pills are making me vomit.
http://www.qpr.co.uk/news/article/221012-hoilett-penalty-438573.aspx Hoillet made the same "excuses" - "It was tough for us when they went down to ten men because they got two banks of four across the middle and made it very difficult for us to break them down. " He's just stating a fact, chill out. Smacks of desperation trying to twist the above into anything other than a simple statement about the way the game progressed.
