Kit Symons had one day with the lads since Felix left. How much did people expect to change overnight? Disappointed but not surprised. COYW
Picking up your earlier post Fulhaman. As one who has been at the Cottage for the previous games, this was an improvement (with the exception of the first 45 minutes against Cardiff). At least I came away today, to quote Kit “disappointed but not despondent”. Yes, the first half was scrappy. Yes, Hutchinson was dreadfully at fault for the red card. And yes, there were weaknesses; continually hoofing the ball to Hugo who in any event had little support around him, for one. On the plus side though, we played with a togetherness that previously has been sadly missing. We didn’t capitulate on going a goal down and indeed from that point on, with 10 men, were by far the better team. You criticise Amorebietta for being “violent” but fail to mention the battering that Hugo got throughout. Or the blatant foul on Roberts when he was clean through. Not an excuse but Mr D’Urso did us no favours. By and large I’d go with rosc’s player assessment, so I’m at odds with you. I would challenge both over your opinion on four players however: * Bettinelli is the best we’ve got but he flapped too often at corners, didn’t communicate very well and is the main culprit for hoofing. * Christensen couldn’t get into the game in the first half, gave away at least two petulant and unnecessary fouls (not something I like to see from a young player). He didn’t start the second much better and I fully expected him to be subbed. But. All that changed when he moved deeper into a central defensive midfield role. He was very good. * Parker did slow things down. Until that is, he moved forward and Christensen changed position. He was determined and direct. I thought he played his heart out in the last half hour. * Ruiz had some nice, classy touches and the odd dribble. But. He just doesn’t put himself about enough. I don’t ever expect him to be tackling or defending but I do expect more from him reading the game; getting closer to front people and cutting out passes. I mentioned subs. George Williams was a good one and a revelation. Never mind his speed, he won more headers than Bryan who he came on for - amazing for such a wee man. Pat Roberts (who should have come on sooner) showed what can be accomplished if you run at the opposition. And that brings me to another major weakness too many of our players lack the ability (confidence?) to run in a straight line - at the heart of the opposition, putting them under pressure. Finally, I’ll go back to the beginning. The team put in an awful lot of effort, occasional bits of quality. In the second half, down to ten men and losing a silly goal, they performed really well and deserved to get something from the game.
C58, you deserve a medal for sitting through worse than that but if you say it was an improvement then it was, I have no counter argument as this was may first exposure to this mob. Your point on support for Hugo is a good one. Perhaps if Smith were playing it may have been different, who can say, but Hugo was isolated - a willing runner but no more than that. I'm really not convinced by Burn - he's my new Senderos - every time the ball comes near him I'm nervous. I noticed him giving strong verbals to the ref on a couple of occasions, which is stupid, and he pushed the ref last week, which is even dimmer. I'd like him to be better, I really would, but at the moment I would like him out of the team. I didn't see the foul on Roberts, or indeed Roberts come on, as I had left in disgust on the 81 minute mark and as I have a reasonable distance to travel I felt justified in doing so. Agree with you on Williams. He was a bright spark. Referee was poor and missed a clear pullback on Hugo in the penalty area, but then D'Urso has always been a bad ref in my opinion.
For my two penneth I agree Kit cannot change things overnight. Today as on Wednesday the players put their all into the game but I actually think they played better Wednesday. I assume David picked up a knock as there was clearly good link up play with him, McCormack and Hugo and we should keep these three together when possible. It was a untidy first half and one easy to forget. Their goal was a bit fortunate and when your down these things seem to happen. Down to 10 men I thought we played ok. A win will be a major milestone and we will kick on as we do have talented players but the confidence is not there. We do give away stupid and reckless fouls, that needs to be addressed, we do hoof ball more but that will sort itself with confidence and we are suffering from poor refereeing decisions and those are more significant when you are at the bottom. MaGath has gone and that's the most important thing. None of our young players are the finished article. They need experience around them and a manager who can further develop them - and then they could be really good.
Cottager58 summed it up for me. Even my better half that was with me at the game, not in favour of Fulham, said that we were much better. Christensen was great in the second half. Think playing deeper is his position. I believe we can give Birmingham a good run...
Sorry Fulhaman, but I have to disagree – in the context of the other performances this season under Felix. The benchmark set being lower than any of us could have ever imagined This was the first time I felt that we had a sensible team selection, which itself was part of the problem (remembering 26 players in 7 matches). And Kit had been in the job for less than 48 hours. Specifically, I disagree on the assertion that Burn equals Senderos. He was in the right place most of the time and I did not have my hand in my mouth. Agreed he needs to learn not to react to referees – but then again some of the more mature Blackburn players were on the referee during the match. It does get infectious. The foul on Roberts was clear – typical professional cautionable foul just outside the box. There were a number during the game, e.g. when the referee refused to let our injured player on. So I have to agree with the sentiment …… COYW!
It wasn't the greatest of games, and both sides had very little goalmouth action. Would it have been better with 11 players, not sure, but the 10 men did well against a team who didn't really overwhelm them with the extra man, and a bit of a lucky goal was our down fall. I wasn't happy with the defense in the first half, Amorebieta was 10 yards in front of the other 3 getting close to their wide man, and Hutchinson was 2 yards behind the other two, a better team would have exploited that, we need someone to take charge of the back 4 and move as a unit. It could be a language problem, but even Bettenelli needs to be more vocal. It changed in the 2nd half slightly better with Amorebieta in the middle and Staflydis at LB. We didn't seem to cope that well with their corners, which again has been our downfall and from set-pieces. For me Hutchinson hasn't had a good game yet, and the same can be said of Christensen, neither have done the step up in performance needed. Think the other players were industrious, needed to get freekicks in and around the box so that McCormack and Ruiz could exploit them, but never seemed to get the decisions from Ref D'Urso, which is the way our luck has gone this season.
