Turning up early for today’s press conference Felix confirmed that Kostas Mitroglou is out with ‘inflamation’ to his knee. Also out are Dan Burn and Ashkhan Dejagah with muscle problems, and Scotty Parker is still side-lined. He said, “Bent is back” - whatever that means. His aim he said is to view one game at a time and not count points. Specifically about this game he said, ."we can defend very well so if we make it difficult for Man City to score we get a chance to score ourselves", adding however "I don’t want the team to go back and only defend, I want us to go forward". Personally I guess he’s targeting a draw. Against Newcastle Sidwell was the most disciplined I’ve seen him, for once not wandering too far from a straight line between the boxes. And Kasami, who was all energy but no product (especially poor passes), doing the roaming. Behind them Kvist did the organising. However, we’ll need to be even more alert against Man City, who will pack the midfield and have more movement than Newcastle so I’d put Kara on in place of Kaca to bolster that area (at least for the first hour). That said, I suspect we’ll see the same starting line-up as last Saturday - ……………….Stockdale…………… ..Heitinga…Hangeland…Amorebietta…Richardson.. ………………..Kvist………… ..Holtby……….Sidwell……Kaca.. ……………..Kasami….. ……………….Woodrow…….. Stockdale deserves to retain his place. Heitinga is more solid defensively than Riether, who can come on for Kaca and do a running, harrying job in place of Kara in the last half hour.
I think FM will play the same team as before Cottager. I know he made a couple of errors but I don't think its a coincidence that we kept a clean sheet with Kvist in the holding position. I do feel that FM is getting a good response from the boys, he is totally committed and oozes belief. However, why is it that all our managers, even Woy, make the daftest substitutions? Is it the water they drink at the Cottage?
Mitroglou was £12 million exceptionally well spent, wasn't he? Someone's head might very well roll for that if we end up going down. Probably deserves to as we are hardly getting full value for money. How did he pass the medical by the way if he hasn't been fit since he got here?
Ouch!! Holtby is also a late fitness test. [video=youtube;Kjbg3RVSrjY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kjbg3RVSrjY&feature=player_embedded[/video] The bit about Mitroglou getting another injury during training last Sunday didn't come over as terribly convincing. Allegedly a 'different injury' but it's the same knee!?
I agree that Felix will play the same starting line up, although I reckon he may get Sidders to drop deeper along kvist and then have the wingers playing narrow. If Holtby does not make it then Karagounis could come in, I have been really impressed with him every time he has played this season. Got a slight feeling that we will score a couple against city. Demechellis and lescott are slow and both have a touch of the ' zat knight disaster touch ' about them. That said city will score as well. Any points would be an amazing bonus. Nothing to lose, so who knows. COYW
Pat Roberts travelled with the squad yesterday. Since he's the only recognised right winger available might he get an outing? please log in to view this image Link to pic: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bi7aLglIAAAc0gi.jpg
Mr Moss, the man with the middle is in the middle today. No need to take a deep breath though, please log in to view this image strangely he only seems to do our away games and strangely we seem to do okay on those occasions. Link to pic: http://ts3.mm.bing.net/th?id=HN.608013914307298562&pid=15.1
Bloody hell have we ever played so many defenders in 1 game, I guess we are looking for defending deep and counter attacking.
Is it just me thinking this or do you think the club is holding kostas back so if we do go down he hasn't shown how good or rubbish he is in the PL also his reputation would still be in tack and so would his price tag....
I think we would probably sell him back to Olympiakos. At a loss, of course, but it seems logical to do this if we go down.
I guess Amorebietta will take some stick after that and most will be deserved, especially for a ridiculous, stupid dive-in for the second penalty. However the main problem today was down the left side and particularly at left back - cannot count the number of times JAR was out of position/not tight enough on his man. In addition to that, given that Felix chose to play 4-3-3, the team was crying out for Holtby instead of Riether. Why he’s not the preferred choice is beyond me. And speaking of Holtby brings me to Mr Moss - how he saw that as a dive and a booking is also beyond my understanding. Indeed throughout the game Mr Moss did us no favours. Horrible though the result was, I felt we played some okay football. So that’s that game behind us and there’s enough heart to take into the Everton match. As Felix said, all we can do at the moment is take it one game at a time. But he does need to get his starting line-up correct.
The result sounds bad but there's a story behind it all and we were after all playing Man City. I didn't expect us to win this at all so it changes nothing - fortunately all our fellow strugglers also lost which is better news.
First half we played fairly well. Sidwell could have given away two penalties though. We could and probably should have gone in level with Riether and Amore headers going close (I think if Amore left it for Cauley he was in a much better position to score). Second half reminded me of Hull second half. We just fell apart, mainly thanks to Amorebieta's stupidity. His sending off wasn't even a second yellow, straight red so he'll be out for the next three. Woodrow put in a decent shift again and held the ball up well at times and Pat Roberts got game time and managed to skin one of the best full backs in the world straight away. We were never realistically going to win this one, so we'll dust ourselves down and move on to the next. Having said that it was very disappointing to concede two penalties, get a man sent off and have Demichelis score against us.
Seems that Felix agrees with you FI. Should be some boots flying at tomorrow's training session - "But Magath was disappointed with what he saw from his side after losing a man, stating: “I’m not happy with how we performed after the second goal because, sure, it was a bad moment for us, they got the second goal and we lost a player, but that’s no reason to stop playing. I think we have to play 90 minutes, with 10 or 11 players, it doesn’t matter. “I told you last week that we have to win our home games and that is important for us and so we can look forward to next week [against Everton]. We have to talk about the situation that we don’t fight until the end of the game because it’s not correct, especially for our fans. They came to Manchester and they like us to win or make a good game, and so we have to fight for 90 minutes, not only for 60 minutes.” Link to full article on Felix's reaction: http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2014/march/22/manager-reaction
I watched the game on a stream yesterday and by half time I thought we deserved to be level. The first penalty was very soft indeed and we had our chances. But overall and following the 2nd penalty and the sending off we were between a rock and a hard place. A final score of 3 - 0 would have reflected better and in balance that we played much of the second half with 10 men, I think it near acceptable. Many teams this season have done worse at the Emirates. I don't think we looked a bottom of the table side playing up against the probable champions (Chelsea are looking a handful though), and there were many positives to take from the game, our fitness is improving game on game, Woodrow has great talent too and to say that after playing City is praise indeed. Going forward I think we have a chance of avoiding the drop, much depends on the performance of other teams though. I hope our Greek acquisition gets fit and shows what he obviously CAN do. To be slating him is ridiculous, and the purchase is more long term than short, albeit short would have been good. If we get anything from Everton next Saturday, this should show much better what our chances are. A win will certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons. Have a good week.
I don't think anyone has actually slated Kostas but what has been questioned is why we spent £12 million on a player who was, quite clearly, unfit and injured to push forward our survival hopes. We bought him in January and are soon to go into April and he has played less than 2 games for us - not his fault - and in those two games he was less than impressive - again, he is bound to be, he was carrying some form of injury, wasn't fit and wasn't up to speed with the Premiership. Even Suarez took a little while to acclimatise to the Premiership. It's the management who have been coming in for criticism, and rightly so. £12 million is a lot for a club like Fulham and to saddle ourselves with his wages, especially if we go down, would be a silly thing to do. For all the impact he has had we would have been better off keeping our money in the bank. I still think that if we go down he will be sold on at a loss. This would be a shame because he may be a 30 goal a season striker, just not for us.
If we go down and have the objective of coming back up why would we sell our players, other than those that won't provide what we need? We are not skint, we should be bringing through our youngsters, shedding as above, and only the best will get promoted. We don't need to sell and can reject offers just as the better Championship sides have done this season. To win the Championship we would need a 30 goal a season man, and if we stay up we will need the same. Come the summer, we will need to buy the best we can, furthermore our management have shown in the January window that they will.
