Yep. He's got the vision of a short man in a very deep hole. There comes a point when, after watching a man bang his head on a brick wall repeatedly, you give up trying to stop him, avert your eyes and just let him get on with it. Well here you go Kit, have your fill of the bloody diamond and see how many more bumps you've got before the lights go out.
I wonder if Kit gets the same view from ground level as we do in the stands. He seems very naive, if I am the opposing manager I'd now exactly the weakness and how to beat Fulham. If Fulham play their possession football out from the back all you have to do is isolate Parker and the defense panic booting the ball long or passing back to the keeper. If Rodallega is played up front you put your tallest player on him, as he will hardly win any headers. The full backs have no cover from the likes of either Kacaniklic or Tunicliffe when they play, so double up on our fullbacks and you will get crosses in. At corners and freekicks make sure the ball is delivered into the middle of the goal area and Fulhams defense will panic because the keeper is weak on crosses. If Fulham play diamond formation unless they counter attack quickly your defense will have time to form 2 banks of 4 before Fulham have passed the ball over the half way line. It's not as if this has changed throughout the season, so opposing managers have a easy task, score 2 goals against Fulham and all the heads drop.
If he doesn't have the same view from where he is, there is always the option to go to the stands for a game. It's not that he is doing much at the touch line anyway!
The people that matter in a "Kit Out" debate are the players. Last year we were relegated because the lot at the time had no interest in playing for the manager or the Club. If the current lot believe Kit is on the "out" he should go now. A presence from Mr Khan, not some PR blurb in the programme, is over due.
His right hand man Mark Pembridge sits in the stands for the first half of every game to see how it's going. They obviously can't see what everyone else can.
Although I'm starting to think Kit isn't the man for the job, it is not going to change until the summer, right now we have to get behind the team get the few more wins we need to stay up and then have a post mortem. This season has been once massive c@@k up but the most important thing now is not to get another relegation!
Agree with Cookie here. Friday was awful, and so has our form since Christmas been. At this stage of the season anyone else coming in is going to have many of the same problems as Kit. Like Cottager says, unless he's lost the players I can't see this group doing much better with someone else. I remember listening to Robbie Savage on 5Live last season talking about Fulham and the negative impact on players of having three managers in a season. Another change now is as likely to do more harm than good so let's get behind Kit for the remaining games. This article in The Guardian is a useful reminder of the mess we were in when Kit took over, and also shows that he's not oblivious to our failings. http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/mar/05/kit-symons-fulham-championship-premier-league
Pembridge sits close to gentkeman jim. Even Jim can see whats happening, why can't Pembridge? Kit will stay until the season ends which i think is the right thing to do.
Kit was left with a mess yes but to put our current form into perspective, Felix was sacked for getting 1 win in 8, Kit currently has 1 win in 11. Part of me wants us to keep Kit long term. If we're so willing to let young players develop and learn from their mistakes, why can't we do the same for a young manager. Then the other part of me is fed up of the club being a laughing stock and would love somebody reliable like Bruce to come in and steady the ship. Excuse me while I sit on the fence for another few weeks.
Whilst a lot of the current problems can be laid at Felix's door and Kit's strange and inflexible tactics I just wonder if this is deflecting some of the attention away from another question that has been bothering me for about half the season - Are some of our kids are as good as we had hoped they would be? I know Roberts hasn't really had a chance along with Dembele and a couple of others who have been in and out of the team but if you compare Woodrow with Kane for instance, there are marked differences. They are both of a similar age - Kane is a little older but not by much, they both have been in the Tottenham youth set up and have both played for England U17 & 21's yet Kane is doing it week in, week out against some of the best defenders in the world and Woodrow can't get past the Watford defence. It's not all his fault, I know, as he is not starting on a regular basis and coming on as a sub isn't easy, but I just wonder if they are all the real deal we had thought they were. They certainly aren't proving it yet if they are - with the possible exception of Lasse (who is starting regularly of course). Rooney was a regular in the premiership at 17, young Grealish at Villa is only a teenager and yet is getting game time - I'm not sure our lads would be up to that. They are talented, but are they promotion winning talented and then, are they good enough for the Premier League?
I guess we all agree things have been a bit of a mess for some time. This blog, which could be titled "The Blame Game", gives a pretty reasonable perspective (lengthy but I think merits posting in full): "Once upon a time, Fulham FC were Premier League stalwarts. Now they sit 21st in the Championship. What!? How!? please log in to view this image It’s less than 24 hours since Fulham were roundly and wholly trounced 5-1 by Bournemouth. This result is not an anomaly, you don’t end up 21st in the Championship without these kind of matches. But just how has this happened and who could be to blame? So why is this a big deal? Fulham are a London club with a billionaire owner. In the world of football there are so many variables you cannot control, location is one of them. But being a London club in location stakes is the footballing version of Willy Wonka’s golden ticket. If it’s not obvious it should be. London, regardless of your thoughts on it is a Mecca for people with money. It is a global city with endless opportunities to distract yourself and spend cash. Things like this are valuable selling points when signing a big player. But of course signing a big player isn’t even a possibility unless you’ve got cash to spend. And Fulham do. They are owned by Shahid Khan a Pakistani-American billionaire. In September of last year his net worth was valued at $4.6 billion. So in short, it’s inexcusable really what is going on in SW6. They have all the resources a club looking to bounce back from relegation should need and yet they are just about keeping their heads above water. This season will require a great escape on a par with the 2007/08 escape that kick started a wonderful period under Roy Hodgson. So who is to blame? Kit Symons is the current manager but that’s likely to change given results this season. Can he be blamed? No, not really. Symons’ only managerial experience prior to the Fulham job was as a temporary caretaker manager for Crsytal Palace and Colchester. A club looking to bounce back should probably have gone for proven Championship experience in this case. That mistake is now costing them. In fact it’s obvious really who is to blame for Fulham’s troubles. Since Khan has taken over, things have been in a permanent slide. Sacking Martin Jol was probably wise but the appointment of Rene Meulensteen was not. Rene, from his time with United is clearly a very smart football man. He was not however a suitable manager. Meulensteen had an ego that wouldn’t shut up and it cost him a job and Fulham some vital points that could have staved off relegation. Burnt from that decision, Khan headed to the opposite end of the experience spectrum when he appointed Felix Magath. But the decision had the hallmarks of an owner who was new to football. Magath is successful. Magath had never been relegated. Magath was a tactics man, a game-plan man. And yet he was not the right man for the job. On the surface it was the right appointment for Khan but it was a decision that lacked context. Magath’s success stretched back to a time gone by. He is a difficult man at the best of times and given the time constraints the club were under to get results, his appointment was actually a huge risk. One that didn’t pay off. Mohammed Al-Fayed was never the richest owner. His grandiose statement in 1997 that Fulham would be “the Manchester united of the South” was naive and before the Abramovich era. It never happened, but he ran a steady ship. In retrospect, what he did was incredibly impressive. Khan has failed in his tenure as owner so far. If Fulham are lucky, he’ll sell them to someone who cares and can afford them. Given their current trajectory, they could cost a whole lot less to any suitors in June, should the be relegated to League One. So what is going on at Fulham? Bad management from the top down. It has trickled into every facet of the club. Shahid Khan is a rich and successful man, but the business of sport is one he should have avoided. Any fans of his NFL franchise, the Jacksonville Jaguars can attest to that." Source: http://www.punditarena.com/football/english-football/thepateam/going-fulham-football-club/
Fulhaman - I've been having the same thoughts about whether our much-heralded kids are good enough, or at least whether they're ready. Even LVC seems to have gone off the boil since picking up injuries. Are they not playing because they're not ready? Or are we missing out on seeing what they can do because they're not getting a run in the side? Cottager58 - decent blog post. Basically, our current problems are mainly due to a string of poor decisions made last season and over the Summer which left us with a squad of players who fall mostly into one of three categories: 1) Don't want to be here; 2) Not good enough; 3) Not ready yet. The main culprit in my view remains Magath, with Khan to blame for basically giving him the run of the club for six months before realising he'd made a massive error of judgement. Kit was then the victim of his own initial success, and it was evidently felt that we could get through the season without signing anyone in January.
I am increasingly thinking that Khan could have had his property portfolio hat on when he purchased FFC, as of yet there seems to be little to believe that he had, or has, any dreams of soccer success.
In terms of our youngsters I don't think any club could have thrown as many in as we did and expect them to all do well! In terms of Rooney yes he was 17 but physically he was a man and was ready he came in and bullied season professionals which is unusual. For every young player who made an impact in there first team at the age of 17/18 in England I could probably name two or three that didn't mature until 21/22 Harry Kane being prime example when he was struggling to score for Millwall and Norwich who would have thought he would turn out like he has
If we look forward to next season and we are still in the Championship, I'd have to ask the question again, does Kit have the clout and the connections to get the right experienced players in. Some would say the back 4 need changing completely but it could be more down to our tactics, but I think we have to look to change the spine of the team, then build round that. Need to get in an experienced CB and captain material, think Parker will need replacing, don't see him lasting the pace, Ruiz will need replacing, Rodallega will need replacing.
All valid points but I don't buy on excuses or trying to read behind the scenes. We spent a year blaming Jol's tactics on MAF and D&D until it was too late. Then we moved to mad-Felix where Khan and the board was to blame. The excuse now is that it's mad-Felix's team. Kit is not up to the job. Let's face the facts and not try to soft the blow of poor performances. The pattern is there. If he asked for funds in January and Khan refused then he is the main culprit. The choices of Kit to leave the team without wingers and stick to the diamond shape and out of form and shape players which doesn't work is evident. Is it Khan's fault to play Hoogland, Amorebieta and Hugo last Friday? Hoogland came on against Derby and plugged the gaps as a defensive midfielder, that's his position. Hugo should not even be on the bench! I don't like changing managers every 5-6 months but we have to stop being emotional and face the truth before it hits us hard on the face!
I know the league table doesn't look good, and the stats for our recent form are equally worrying, but I don't think we're going to go down (I know, I said the same at some stages last season, but I think this is different). If someone had offered me 3pts from our run of games against Wolves, Derby, Watford and Bournemouth before we'd played any of them, I'd have been satisfied with that. the next run of games is largely against teams in mid-table or lower, so should provide the prospect of more points. Kit's inflexibility worries me, but his tactics can work, as they did against Derby. As I argued before the game, Bournemouth is entirely the wrong team to play the diamond against, but we've still got an 8pt cushion with the teams below us (with the possible exception of Wigan) in even worse form than us. Given the lack of an obvious candidate to take over - unless we're talking about Alan Curbishley as a caretaker - and the disruption it could cause, Kit should be given the chance to see us safely through the rest of the season. If the manner he goes about that shows signs of rectifying his faults, all well and good. If we limp over the line making the same mistakes for the next ten games, then we're more likely to find a good replacement in the summer. The Brentford manager will be available then, for a start, and he'd be well worth considering. I'm as frustrated with Kit as the next man, but I don't think ditching him now would be productive.
I can't go through another season like this one if we survive. I have been pro kit from the outset but I think he's sadly out of his depth and should step aside at the end of this campaign. I'm not entirely sure that Curbishley is helping much, despite what Kit says.
