The nightmare scenario is continuing; Brom at home and Fullham were supposed to be our 'winnable' fixtures. Today the real damage is not only not winning 3 points but also handing 3 to our relegation rivals. Meanwhile Ipswich's play-off push is still just about alive. Fullham have the form and two winnable home games in their run in so we now HAVE to take at least 3, maybe 4 points from those nightmare last 4 games. Did we deserve to win today? Yes, I would say we did and I don't have a clue how we didn't. We dominated the first half, Ricky van Wolfswinkel, Fer and Johnson all coming close in that frantic flurry which an inspired Stockdale kept out. Snodgrass hit the bar also. But in the end, as has been the case so many times this season we conceded against the run of play and our opponents had something to defend and duly saw it through. So now we find ourselves in the situation were yet again we deserved 3 points and our opponents got them. Cardiff mark 2. So who was good and bad? Olsson, Fer, Turner (as he has been every time he has played) and Snodgrass were excellent all game.Rusty, Ruddy Howson and Redmond were decent enough. van Wolfswinkel, Whittaker and Johnson weren't bad but made some mistakes. The most disappointing thing is that the second half we didn't really look that close to scoring. Turner had a header blocked on the line and Snodgrass was very close to getting a tap in. Adam's substitutions were completely ineffective; Hooper was anonymous, Hoolahan lost the ball far too often (especially dangerous considering the danger of the counter-attack) and Murphy didn't make much impact either. Had Hughton presided over these substitutes he would have been slated for losing the game. We got the ball around Fullham's area but they defended solidly until we gave them the ball and counter-attacked; they were very dangerous on the break which is why it was such a shame that they got a goal out of nothing. Fullham had zero threat from open play and wouldn't have defended as they did (with three holding mids for most of the second half) and I really feel we could have won. Fullham have been so poor defensivley this season too but they were impeccable today. Why does this keep happening to us? Why do our opponent's goalkeepers always have a blinder and their defenders all manage to concentrate 100% of the time when they are so bad against everybody else? So now, with relegation looming in the background, once again we our left to rue our mist chances, inability to keep the ball when it matters most, lack of final ball and bad luck. Just like so was often the case under Hughton!
tactically naïve, terrible substitutions that made no difference, playing Johnson rather than Tettey - the man is a tool
Personally I thought we were better today that we have been away in a long time, we looked a bit shaky at the back but i think that was due to the (forced) choice of a CB pairing which hasn't played together this season. Going forward we looked bright and at the start inventive, we got behind Fulham and forced some excellent saves, once we conceded though Fulham focused entirely on closing the game out and succeeded, when the dropped the attacking intend they crowed the defence so much that it was very hard for us to get through and our fragile confidence broke leaving us few opportunities. We looked far better in the midfield, granted some of this will have been the return of Fer in the middle but the pressing high up and winning the ball back quickly is exactly what we needed to be doing. The subs were pretty good really and made with enough time to have an effect on the game, Fer looked dead on his feet and needed to go off, Howson too had run a lot and bringing on murphy allowed us to introduce more pace and width. There were definite improvements today, it made me feel today that the change was 5 games to late not 5 too early.
Yes, on one level it was more of the same. But on another level I would argue that we never gave up; there wasn't that sense of giving up as soon as we went behind. Sometimes a team just seems doomed, and that seems us at the moment.
I never perceived us to give up under Hughton either. There have been many times when we went behind under Hughton despite being in control and then never looked equalizing. This was the same again today. Yet today we had alot more to play for too.
I thought there was a big difference today to previous away encounters. Whether that is because Fulham are hopeless I don't know. I cannot see us staying up now. The performances will probably fall to pieces now.
When you say fall to pieces, do you actually mean return to pieces, because today was certainly better than a lot of the recent hootun ones. Bah!
Pretty sure we'd have capitulated and lost by a much larger margin, instead of coming away genuinely unlucky.
The lads put a big shift in today, you cannot argue that We will not be relegated because of tofay but the previous 33 games Chin up everyone
Have to say it was a very encouraging start and a very encouraging first half, but, as has been the habit all season, as soon as the opposition scored we seemed to run out of steam and out of ideas, and in all honesty in the second half, they were closer to 2 - 0 than we were to 1 - 1.
Bunch of plastics believe it ain't over til the Fat lady sings Get behind the boys and stop whining OTBC
There is no point lying to myself. I genuinely do expect the performances to fall through the floor, I obviously hope they don't, but with the scenario we are in, there is really no cogent argument to suggest otherwise.
We (SAFC) are doomed but I am am surprised Norwich are down there, it looks like curtains for you now. I hoped Villa would cop it but they are jammy gets. We played very good today but no goalscorer again cost us. We will both get straight back up next season though, we have Watmore as a main striker and rate him very highly for the championship.
