The only insight on the team for tomorrow is the Gaffer's post on the Official page and he hit the nail on the head when he said, "we didn’t play on Saturday like a team". Here's a link to the other stuff he said if you want to have a read but it all basically hinges around that one simple fact: http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2016/september/26/slavisa-jokanovic-we-must-adapt There are two BIG questions facing us for this game. Firstly, will Kalas and/or Madl be fit. Very much doubt if Michael will be and therefore banking on Thomas being okay. The second imponderable is how are we going to get goals? Clearly there will have to some reshuffling with McDonald suspended for three games. The key however, will not be so much who replaces him but who sits in front of that central midfield place and while I'd very much like to see a change in format, I'm pretty certain he's going to persist in 4-2-3-1. So it has to be a change in personel. I'm going for: ......................Button.......... ..Odoi...Kalas....Sigurdsson....Malone... ............Tunnicliffe..Parker.... .....LVC.........Kebano.....Cairney.... ........................Aluko.....
The man in charge tonight is Darren Bond Mr Bond is another who comes from a footballing family but he himself opted for the whistle, taking up refereeing at 15. He's now 20 years down that road. Wouldn't say he card happy - last season in 36 games last year he dished out 106 yellows and 3 reds. However he does seem to have upped the anti this year, having already managed 22 yellows and 3 reds in 7 games. The only time we've seen him before was the 1-1 draw away to Cardiff on 5th September 2015 when he booked a player from each side.
We don't really have a goalkeeper that fills me with confidence, so I'd do a change, what they do in training I have no idea but accurate kicking needs to be given priority. If Madl is OK I'd stick him in DM position moving to a back 3 allowing FB to get forward and overload the Forest defence. ......................Bettinelli.......... ..Odoi...Kalas....Sigurdsson....Malone ............Adeniran..Parker.... ......Kebano...................Sessegnon... ...............Smith....Martin....
As ever with the good logic SuperBri. Believe Sessegnon tweeked a hamstring on Saturday though. And while I totally agree with you about our Goalies and distribution, Bettinelli is even slower than Button at getting rid of the ball. So I'm sticking with Button in goal, flaws and all. My mystery card remains to be LVC. For them Lansbury is out having got a one match ban for 5 yellows, which is good going after a handful of matches. And probably good news for us. Should be interesting to see how our oldie Pajtim Kasami performs - he's apparently been fairly hit and miss so far.
It looked like Ryan injured his knee on Saturday rather than his hamstring. Looked to be a quite a bit of pain too, luckily the final wistle went soon after he did it.
For some reason LVC, Woodrow & Tunnicliffe seem out of favour with SJ. Think he's more likely to play Johansen, Jozabed or Piazon before them. Kasami was a bit hit & miss when he played for us, but lots of energy and closing down were his main attributes. ( And of course remember for THE Palace goal of the century.
From what I gather listening from Gentleman Jim and his side kick (when they weren't fading out) we did okay; Parker and Tunnicliffe terrific and Martin a lot sharper in the 20 minutes he was on. The stats seem to back that up - 58% possession, 10 corners to their 2 and 18 shots on goal (that's not bad away from home). Also picked up a quote from a Sky reporter after our equaliser saying, "no more than Fulham deserved, they have been excellent". Add to that lot two goals ruled offside. And a miss by Aluko from two yards out - bet none of our fans were rolling about on the terraces laughing about that one, not when the scores are 0-0 anyway. So, a jolly good comeback after Saturday and probably unlucky not to steal all the points. Still unbeaten on the road as well. We ought to be radical a la SuperBri for this Saturday - wear the red shirts and kick towards the Hammy End in the first half.
It was a well deserved draw and was game we should have won. The game was very open and had a hat full of chances. If we had a proper goal scorer we would have won 5-1. Smith had a header well saved in the first half, two disallowed goals in the second half and an effort from Aluko which went over the bar when it was easier to score. There were similarities to Saturday as Notts Forest had their chances also and had one gone in in the 1st half it would have been deja vu. Smith had a great chance at the end to give us the win and sent the ball high. All in all played well, scoring still an issue and Parker was MOM - he controlled the game.
Looks like another night of bad misses in front (and I mean in front) of goal costing us points again. although Forest missed a few easy chances too and also hit the bar. Could've been a high scoring game, but we had two goals disallowed, the first I think Aluko was onside, the second I think Smith was offside.
A link to the video highlights: http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2016/september/28/match-action-nottingham-forest? Plenty of talking points - * the missed headers by Smith and that miss by Aluko * the defending (or lack of) by Malone * the offside 'goals' (struggled to see what was wrong with the one given against Aluko) * how we attacked in numbers (but then often didn't make the right final choice) ...... and no doubt others you spotted.
