Today's press conference was unusually held at the Cottage (rumour had it that there were some rollovers left from the George Cohen 'do' the other night). Slavi confirmed that Michael Madl is out - ankle injury this time - and indeed will also miss the Bolton game as well. Earlier in the week, the Boss told the local paper, "although we're now safe I won't be experimenting, I will put out my strongest team for this Derby match". Question is 'strongest' for what? Holding the ball hoping for a draw or a win on the break? To be honest I'm not sure he himself knows what his best ('strongest') team is. Certainly not based on the tinkering we've seen of late and here I'm excluding the back four. That's been a bit of a lottery. Just take the CB's - can anyone remember when the same pairing played in two consecutive matches? Anyway, pretty certain Saturday will be 4-4-2 and probably starting with: ..........................Bettinelli............. ..Fredericks..Stearman..Amorebieta..Ream.. ....LVC..........Ince.....Parker.......Cairney.. .................Dembele.....McCormack....
All I want now is this season to end as quickly as possible and I'm sure to an extent the players feel the same, but if we don't turn up for this game I will be furious, I can take a defeat we are away to a decent side who have had a good couple of seasons but if we lose 3 or 4 nil I will not be impressed.
Apparently Brentford rested half their team in the 2-0 defeat to Hull on Tuesday night, anticipating this one. One of the few who did play in that Hull game was rosc's tip Jake Bidwell but he went off injured 20 minutes from the end and is probably out tomorrow. Like you say Cookie, there's can be no excuses from our lot after a week off - apart from drinkie poos at the George Cohen 'do' - to prepare.
Yorkshireman Mark Haywood is in charge today. Not one to mince his words, or his cards, Mr Haywood as often as not goes straight to red; having produced 7 this season in his 31 games with only a measly 76 yellows. You'd mark him down as relatively experienced since he's been around since 2006 but most of his work in the last two years has been in League 2. We have seen him before however - in a 2-1 home defeat to Ipswich back in February 2015. Just out of curiosity I checked out our team that day: Bettinelli; Richards, Hutchinson, Bodurov, Stafylidis; Parker; Christensen (Woodrow 64'), Tunnicliffe; Kacaniklic (Roberts 85'); Rodallega (Ruiz 68'), McCormack Unused subs: Kiraly, Burn, Grimmer, Fofana Interesting mix wouldn't you say? Better or worse?
And today's team is: ..........................Bettinelli................. ..Richards..Stearman...Amorebieta..Ream.. ........Tunnicliffe....Ince....Parker... ....LVC....................................Cairney.. ...................McCormack... Trying to shore up/protect the back I guess. Could work if they all work ... together. Still vurnerable down our left side though. The subs are: Lonergan, Fredericks, O'Hara (goodness knows why), Hyndman, Burn, Dembele and Smith. So we could anticipate one of Slavi's now-famous half time switch of formation.
I'm not convinced the players got the memo about shoring up the defence? It's not rocket science surely.
Yup. Why do our lot turn up for games like this as if they are training sessions? The only excuse I can come up with is, "arrogance": believing they are better than they are. And might as well say it .. these players may not be Slavi's, but Kit got better results out of them.
I will never give up on Fulham but have to be honest I need this summer badly and will be gone for a month or two until the transfer window opens!! NEED A BREAK
First half was poor. No fight, no desire. Richardson stood out as particularly dire. 2nd have was better but by then the damage had been done.
"What can one say " Most of our players on the pitch took the piss, particularly the the back 3 Aptly named by some fans around me as the Marx brothers, starting with Harpo in goal wandering all over the place, they were justifiably booed off at half time.. A worrying factor for me is in the Slavi press conferences he is tactically going to do this ,or that but it never happens . is this because he cannot motivate or get through to them ,or are they just thick. And yes, if there is not a marked improvement by the end of November as a long suffering supporter I will be calling for his head revolving doors or not.
Jokanović added: “We need to try in the last game against Bolton to do something different.” Any Clues ? May be Dan Burn upfront with Matt Smith, McCormack and Dembele Center backs or maybe if we play two goalkeepers. The good news is there is only one more game to go then hope will spring eternal till the start of the next season.
1. At throw-ins try putting the ball to someone's feet instead of lobbing it in the air 2. Ban McCormack from taking corners 3. £100 fine for every back pass in our half .. uh, maybe not, Ream doesn't earn enough
Neat bit of editing - you could actually believe we were in the game. Aided of course by omitting the usual commentary by Gentleman Jim (if you listened to him on the day you'll know what I mean). It is painful though, when you at the goals, how hapless our positional play is and that includes the goalkeeper!
