Rival watch

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The Changing Man said:
We need to play our best available players in their best positions against Chelsea in order to stand a chance. Harry is therefore a definite starter, we are sometimes over critical of Harry (myself included) but he has set ridiculously high standards over his time in the team and any slight dip is seen as a cause for concern.

Currently we are getting good results by playing well in patches - Hugo is a good example of this; moments of brilliance making saves that win us matches mixed up with moments of madness that have some of us calling for Gazza to start. So far this season only Lucas, and Sissoko have performed consistently in line with our expectations (Sissoko actually way above most of our expectations). Lamela despite a poor game at the weekend can also be excused too much criticism, but everyone else has good spells in matches and also gone missing just as often.

Hopefully all our fit players will return unscathed from this break and we will go into a crucial spell of the season with fewer injuries and get some consistency in selection and performance as we will need this for the rest of the season to secure our place in the top 4.
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Our best available players aren't playing to their best atm notable examples being Christian and Dele and dare I say it Kane. Maybe playing a top team will inspire them but I maintain...............play Kane and Llorente.
 
"Thanks for that Brian" said:
Fulham sack Jokanovic to appoint................................................Claudio Ranieri.

Still, there's always the parachute payments.
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They desperately needed someone to organise that defence. He might be the man to do it.
Big game up first, too. 6 pointer against Southampton.
 
bigsmithy9 said:
Really? Really.That was ours to win.....and we choked! Plus...I still have nightmares about our last game of that season,losing to a relegated team 5 bloody 1.
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How was it ours to win? We were never top. We only managed to narrow the gap by winning 10 out of 13 games.
Leicester lost one match from the 29th of December til the end of the season.
Arsenal were top in January. It was theirs to win.
 
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PleaseNotPoll said:
They desperately needed someone to organise that defence. He might be the man to do it.
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It's difficult to know what he supplied at Leicester. Recruitment seems to have been Steve Walsh and tactical set-up, in the title winning season, has been widely accredited to Craig Shakespeare. There were some very strong characters in the dressing room in Huth, Morgan, Schmeichael, etc.

He was a very popular figurehead for sure and he was a motivating factor for the collective group. I think that he'll need a lot more than that with the Fulham players available to him, unless he's got another miracle in him?
 
"Thanks for that Brian" said:
It's difficult to know what he supplied at Leicester. Recruitment seems to have been Steve Walsh and tactical set-up has been widely accredited to Craig Shakespeare. There were some very strong characters in the dressing room in Huth, Morgan, Schmeichael, etc.

He was a very popular figurehead for sure and he was a motivating factor for the collective group. I think that he'll need a lot more than that with the Fulham players available to him, unless he's got another miracle in him?
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I don't think that Fulham have a bad squad. They lack some grit in the midfield, but it's fairly workable other than that.
I can see them looking to trim a few fringe players in January and get in some more depth, but that might backfire.
They made a lot of signings and they still haven't settled.
 
PleaseNotPoll said:
I don't think that Fulham have a bad squad. They lack some grit in the midfield, but it's fairly workable other than that.
I can see them looking to trim a few fringe players in January and get in some more depth, but that might backfire.
They made a lot of signings and they still haven't settled.
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Going forward looks pretty good and should be enough to keep them up, all other things being equal. However, their defending is a complete disaster. When we played them at Wembley this season, I wrote on the match thread that they just couldn't defend...and they couldn't...and they still can't.

I don't know whether they've got the raw materials to construct a decent back line or the money to buy in some better players? However, they'd have to shift the current lot, so he's got his work cut out for him. Having a pretty inexperienced American owner won't help.
 
"Thanks for that Brian" said:
Going forward looks pretty good and should be enough to keep them up, all other things being equal. However, their defending is a complete disaster. When we played them at Wembley this season, I wrote on the match thread that they just couldn't defend...and they couldn't...and they still can't.

I don't know whether they've got the raw materials to construct a decent back line or the money to buy in some better players? However, they'd have to shift the current lot, so he's got his work cut out for him. Having a pretty inexperienced American owner won't help.
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I don't think that it's the defence, so much as the defending throughout the team.
They need a more stable back four and some grit in the middle of the park, as well as using their wide men better to scare opponents.
Schurrle and Sessegnon breaking against you should be bloody terrifying. It's too slow at the moment.
 
PleaseNotPoll said:
I don't think that it's the defence, so much as the defending throughout the team.
They need a more stable back four and some grit in the middle of the park, as well as using their wide men better to scare opponents.
Schurrle and Sessegnon breaking against you should be bloody terrifying. It's too slow at the moment.
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Across the whole team there's a lack of hustle but the actual defending has been very bad, very very bad. They created chances against Arsenal but were torn to shreds on the break. There's no defensive shape or plan. They look like us when we lose our heads in away games in Europe - unable to hold the ball and as jittery as hell.
 
Jokanovic got a mid table Fulham going in the second half of last season - mainly on the back of Mitrovic's goals.
This season they've gone back to being a mid table Championship side.
Too many new signings, too many changes and not enough quality.
I'm not sure Ranieri can get any more from this group of players. They need to recruit an experienced, decent centre half in January. But where do they get one from? Mourinho couldn't manage it.

As for Leicester, it's still a great story. Still hard to believe it happened.
 
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