Fulham vs. Charlton Athletic
Date: Saturday, 20th February 2016
Kick Off: 3:00pm
Venue: Craven Cottage
The Addicks make the short 13 mile trip up river to opponents Fulham, in a fixture which previous years would have seen us sell out the away end in hours (look back to our FA Cup Tie under Chris Powell), however if you have not yet secured your place tickets in the away end will be on sale. More shambolic occurrences in our club continue; during a minutes applause and tribute to former player Graham Moore to the image of Alan Campbell on the jumbotron and signing yet another defender Yun Suk-Young most likely to replace out of form Morgan Fox. In a week in which we saw Roland Duchâtelet make a rare visit to The Valley, not for viewing one of our games, but to try to "speak reason" to the fans protesting against his regime. It seems that the general consensus is not buying into his words, and it has this fan thinking it's time for him to sell up and leave, irrespective of what he personally believes.
We head into this game, with a small resurgence in form (and a tonne of injuries) but with our opponents around us winning, little will do to move us out of our league position. The bottom three that you will most likely be the relegation three come 2nd May 2016. We had a chance to close the gap with the pack, with a win against Cardiff City but now with our goal difference, find ourselves effectively seven points from safety...
The Opposition
Manager Slaviša Jokanović has recently taken over the helm at Craven Cottage, having a successful spell at promoting Watford FC to the premier league the season before. The Serb has had quite a indifferent spell at the club, though it's too early to monitor his impact upon the team. He'd no doubt been signed with the view of turning fortunes around for the club next season, and has recently re-signed experienced international Chris Baird on loan from Derby County. They have had two contrasting weeks, with a stunning 3 - 0 away victory at rivals QPR, with a poor performance against Blackburn Rovers losing 3 - 0. With players like Dembélé and McCormack and a game with second from bottom Charlton, Jokanović, is hoping to put some distance between Fulham and the relegation pack.
Current Form
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Our form and theirs is equally bad at the moment, but I don't think that much should be taken away from. Fulham do not concede as many goals as us and have scored more considering four of our five away goals came from one match, and have accumulated a string of 3 - 0, 4 - 0, 5 - 0 and 6 - 0 losses. What the opposition have is goal scorers, and against the leagues most leakiest defence we could be staring at another heavy defeat.
Head-To-Head
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We have to go all the way back to 20th December 2004 when we last registered a win against Fulham FC, our goals coming from Jerome Thomas and Talal El-Karkouri. Those days in the Premier League seem a somewhat distant memory. The best we have mustered in recent times have been two draws, both at The Valley, in both instances coming from goals down, McCormack scoring in both them games. We succumbed to a 4 - 0 defeat during a sold out FA Cup match, however Powell can be forgiven considering we won the League One title that year against then Premier League opponents. During last season we experienced our first league defeat against Fulham as Bob Peeters team put up more of a fight in the second half to reduce the arrears, with former Addick Scott Parker finding his way onto the scoresheet in just six minutes.
Club Updates
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Team Lineup
Not quite sure where to start continuing on from the press conference. Some of the key points to take out is that our long list of injuries continues, and that the loan players that we are signing are certainly not up to standard and they themselves are currently injured. The most logical line up; with what we got would be something like:
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Outcome
Both teams have appalling form at the moment, but I believe that Fulham have more quality, experience and a more apt manager to see this game out. We may not see the 5 - 0 or 6 - 0 maulings of recent times, but this will most likely be a high scoring game for the home team. If we don't lose 4 - 0, I'd consider ourselves lucky.
As always, [HASHTAG]#SupportTheTeam[/HASHTAG] [HASHTAG]#HateTheRegime[/HASHTAG]. [HASHTAG]#COYR[/HASHTAG] [HASHTAG]#COYA[/HASHTAG]