I’d have taken a 2-1 loss at the start of the night. Sounds like a better performance and no disrespect losing by a goal to what looked like a strong Fulham lineup. Hopefully they can take the positives and move on to the weekends game
Desperate for a new LB. McCallum and Giannoulis are just not up to it defensively. Obviously, Batth needs to play over Gibson too. Id probably take Warner over him too atm. Saturday should be: Gunn Stacey Duffy Batth Giannoulis Mclean Forshaw Sainz Sara Placheta Idah/Hwang Edit: Maybe play Rowe over Sainz, given he has only played 70 mins ish, over 2 games
Good performance and great credit to the players who started. Sainz made a great debut with his goal and his play in general. He had some takeaways in midfield which led to chances and I can see him fitting in well with Wagner's tactics. Disagree about McCallum(7.3) who had a great game to make a big statement and Warner and Fisher looked very much first team players against good PL players. Given the current injuries, our squad looks to have decent depth. Tonight's performance took away the foul taste after the Plymouth disaster.
I was at the match, a few thoughts: - Fisher looked good. He had a really tough time against Willian in the first half but held his own. I was at the wrong end for the second goal, but even then could see it was a massive defensive cock up, so feel sorry for him there because that colours what was otherwise a strong performance. He also came so close to scoring himself with a beautifully side-footed volley. - It’s difficult to be totally sure, because he might have been partly at fault for the first goal, but I thought Warner generally seemed really assured - elegant on the ball and positioned himself well defensively, making a couple of crucial challenges/blocks. I feel like he’s come out of nowhere, but to be honest I thought he looked more comfortable on the ball than Gibson. - Placheta looked really good at times. Too many touches as ever and got the ball lost under his feet, but in the first half at least he was our likeliest creative outlet. - Long had a very inconsistent game - a couple of exceptional saves mixed with a couple of cringing moments - his passing accuracy when going long (ho ho) left a lot to be desired. - I’m not sure why Forshaw got rated highly because he (and admittedly others) seemed to be bossed in midfield. - Hernandez really disappointing. Hwang was a bit anonymous apart from missing (what looked like from the far end) a complete sitter. - Sainz looked great, but nervy. He really should have scored a second when clean through - or at least had a decent shot - but missed his timing. Excited about this guy. Fulham probably edged it on the night and just about deserved a win rather than a draw. as they did look a lot more assured on the ball, but we actually went toe to toe for much of the match (including with properly dominant spells) even though it was our second string. Even though a loss, much better than at the weekend…
Having listened to the game and watched the highlights, I can't see what Fisher's 'massive cock-up' was. His pass hit a Fulham player and deflected to another, but there was still plenty of time for the defence to respond. https://www.skysports.com/football/...th-aston-villa-everton-and-west-ham-in-action Like Warner, he seems to have huge potential at just 19, having played non league football last season. It's a shame if people focus on mistakes rather than overall performance with these young players. Warner saved a certain goal with a perfectly timed tackle just a yard from our goal but it hardly gets a mention.
Warner acknowledges the help Gibson gave him through the game: https://the72.co.uk/2023/09/28/jade...mmate-who-guided-him-through-debut-vs-fulham/ He'll be 21 next month.
I've been very impressed with Fisher when you consider he has been making the step up from non-league football to play against Premier League opposition last night, that is a meteoric rise in the space of 6 months. Last night he played against a highly experienced Brazil international with 2 premier league winners medals, he may be 34 now but the quality is still there.
Watching those highlights, young Fisher had a mistake which eventually led to the second goal, but there were four passes after that for our defence to stop the attack. At the best, only marginally the fault of Fisher. Overall, on highlights video, a rather encouraging performance.
Impressed with Sainz goal, hope he is at least on the bench for Birmingham game, 1 silver lining to going out is we avoided Binners in the next round, so our unbeaten run against them continues for a few more months at least
In the absence of Sargent and Barnes, Sainz could make a real difference as he returns to fitness. Hopefully, he'll get another 30 minutes against Brum and then pushes on.
Agreed the massive cock up was not Fisher’s, it was all round poor defensively. It was hard to see from the far end! But also those replays show it was a pretty good strike from Iwobi too, so you have to take it on the chin. The other interesting thing from the highlights is on the first goal I couldn’t work out how Iwobi had so much space out wide, but it looks pretty clear to me that the reason was Diop being pretty dirty by blocking McCallum from closing the wide ball down. That would probably never be given as a foul, so fair enough, but it is a good example of Premier League teams being that bit better at the dark arts than us
