BFTG - Fulham

[ForzaRoyals]

Berg - 6 one mistake. Just one. Helped create our goal and was otherwise fine

This. I know he's going to get slated for the lapse in concentration, which I get, but I felt he improved us massively when he came on.

[3points]

If we think we lack a striker, then what about Fulham? I accept they went all defensive after the red card, but a front three of Aluko, Kabano and Ayite isn't going to be nearly consitent enough. Barrow looks more decent than Aluko afaiac and he's the best of their front three. Trying to be too much like Liverpool and play with a false 9. Sorry, just don't buy it.

Stam needs to quickly instill some confidence in our players and get them to shoot when they have a decent opportunity to do so. If they shoot and make the keeper make a save, then we might get some rebounds. There must have been 4-5 occasions today (at least) where we could have got a shot away but chose to turn or pass the ball.

Quite liked the look of Clement. I think he might start pushing Swift as our central attacking midfielder.

And given the amount of soace available, I thought Gunter had a shocker today - really needed him to be braver and provide some attacking intent. I'd have been tempted to have taken him off ealry doors and put on Popa as a more attacking wing back. Plus he should have done better with the goal - yes Blackett and Joey cocked things up first, but Gunter should have stopped Piazon and hauled him down

[3points]

Im not a paradox or a tool you are not a real fan I am so I can rate the players after listening to it. I listen to all the games and I am a real fan

Hi Dave

[Jagermesiter1871]

Met a decent bunch of Fulham on the way home. They didn't think a lot of us, and felt hard done by the red, but think we're both much weaker this season.

They think Barrow's a real find.

How are they much weaker this year? Correct me if I'm but isn't Malone the only outward transfer of any note whilst they made a couple decent signings?

Sounds to me like you met your standard lot of clueless Fulham fans.

[3points]

Met a decent bunch of Fulham on the way home. They didn't think a lot of us, and felt hard done by the red, but think we're both much weaker this season.

They think Barrow's a real find.

How are they much weaker this year? Correct me if I'm but isn't Malone the only outward transfer of any note whilst they made a couple decent signings?

Sounds to me like you met your standard lot of clueless Fulham fans.

No Chris Martin or Scott Parker. Plus Cairney didn't play today. Norwood looked his usual flatter to deceive self today

[windermereROYAL]

Seriously if anyone thought that was worse than QPR then maybe they need to get their medication changed.

[windermereROYAL]

Back from the stream. I made notes on the first half. Gave up in the second.
I'll start on our general performance.

We pressed very well. This might have been due to the red card as players would have felt more comfortable surging forward but despite our high pressing we won very few of the resulting balls. Often we would force the player off the ball and proceed to allow him enough time to salvage a pass. Our concentration in that regard was poor.

Similarly our passing at the back was confident which I assume is due to Fulhams bus being parked. We struggled to transfer this confidence to our passing at the front. It often fizzled out to nothing with our advanced mids guilty of dawdling on the ball. Our Wing Backs operated very high which, for the most part, worked well. They were often free for crossfield balls but Fulham defended as a unit and all our crosses were easily dealt with.

Corners and our (1?) free kick taking was pointless. We operated some weird tactic to all circle together just next to the penalty spot but the crosses never reached there. seemed odd and ineffective.

We fouled a lot.

Mannone - Did well. Claimed most of the shots with ease, cant really blame him for the 1 on 1, bad communication with McShane in the second half which resulted in him passing it straight out. Symptomatic of our overall low concentration. 6/10
Gunter - A typical Gunter performance. A mixed bag, good movement followed by poor positioning, great pass followed by terrible cross. Missed the slide tackle for their equaliser but would be harsh to blame him for that. 6/10
Ilori - Confident on the ball, marked well, fouled a lot, he really looks like he doesnt want to be a footballer. 6/10
Moore - Hes a solid footballer. He got forward well, passed well and I dont remember him putting a foot wrong. 7/10
McShane - Hard to judge like the other CBs as he didnt have much to do for most of it. Was solid. 6/10
Blackett - He somehow has both a great first touch and a crap first touch. He manages to look great on the ball at times and then suddenly awful. 6/10
Evans - Very quiet. For every good pass he had a bad pass. I understand the sub. 5/10
Kelly - Great goal. Poor corners. Guilty of a few wayward passes in the first half. 7/10
Swift - The definition or Reading style of play. Capable of so much more, played well at times but overall disappointing because we all know he should be doing better. Made a fantastic run in the first half which Blackett then wasted with his first touch. Both created some of our best chances and wasted some of our best chances. 6/10
Barrow - Was our best player. Only person trying to dribble the ball rather than persist with the pointless crossing. On that note, he is awful at crossing. He should turn good 7/10
Mendes - Suffered as a result of our play. Often his positioning was odd but I think that was the tactics more than anything. Players struggles to find him anywhere as he was surrounded by Fulhams bus. Got the assist. 7/10

Subs:
JVDB - His energy resulted in our goal with a few minutes. Was important in the build up and I dont think we would have scored without his introduction. Wasted all that goodwill on an idiotic pass. 4/10 (lucky to not be lower)
Clement - He came on as a LWB and didnt do much. N/A

Exactly how I saw the game too, all this bollox about passing the ball and going nowhere, where the f*ck did the 23 shots on goal come from then?

[ElmParkBloke]

SCIAG somewhere above says "That was a good game", and at the end of the game many people around me were actually applauding. But that was the most mind-numbing, boring, drivel masquerading as football I have seen in the fifty years I've been following this team. Well, I suppose it must be me then.

[Jack Celliers]

Barrow was good
Swift only has one foot
The ref was odd
We threw a win away with one moment of madness

[mikey0406]

The worse thing that happened in the game today was the sending off, it made Fulham retreat into a compact shape and didn't allow for space to open up. They became hesitant and forced us to have the majority of the ball in the middle third of the pitch with limited space opening up in the flanks. The players did not want to lose the ball and take risks and a lot of our play down the flanks resulted in the ball being pulled back to the edge of the box.

You cannot be over critical of any of the players bar the lapse in concentration to the end. The team which played today is missing around 6 players who featured last season! I know pre season wasn't great but whatever way you look at it this team will need time. Barrow looked good as did Moore and llori. Blackett looked class and composed at times then rash the next, Evans looked to force the ball at times which would look frustrating to anyone looking on but he was trying to create opportunities for others, felt sorry for Mendes who was suffocated by the centre halfs and received little in good areas.

Every team is finding this transfer window tough, it's still likely majority of everyone's business will be done in the final week. Everyone is finding these days that you cannot force a club to sell as money is not allowing it anymore. Likely to mean Stam will be forced into taking a punt on someone a little less known and gambling.

[John Madejski's Wallet]

Exactly how I saw the game too, all this bollox about passing the ball and going nowhere, where the f*ck did the 23 shots on goal come from then?

Speculative shots from distance mostly

[tmesis]

Exactly how I saw the game too, all this bollox about passing the ball and going nowhere, where the f*ck did the 23 shots on goal come from then?

Speculative shots from distance mostly

and blocked shots.

I know there were several players out, but the lack of creativity really is a problem. We completely dominated the game, but you still rarely felt like we were going to create a chance, let alone score.

We have the cutting edge of a blancmange, and it is by far the biggest weakness of the team.

[Hound]

I'm not suprised by the negative reactions on here, and didn't go to the game myself so not able to comment accurately on this game but...

We are missing impt players. No point suggesting this isn't a major issue. Beerens, McCleary, Yann and Obita were big players last year. Jon Dadi was signed as a #9

On top of that we are playing Barrow, Mendes and McShane who are still not 100% fit, or have had no real pre-season

We've just drawn to pretty much everyone's pick as one of the teams who are going to go up

Stam's similar tactics last year got us 3rd in the league. Every single team from half way through the first gme against Preston knew exactly how we'd play. They haven't just 'worked us out'

Pretty sure things will improve very soon

[Snowflake Royal]

Exactly how I saw the game too, all this bollox about passing the ball and going nowhere, where the f*ck did the 23 shots on goal come from then?

Speculative shots from distance mostly

I thought the players did really well to choose not to shoot on quite a few occasions when there really wasn't a chance on, or they were off balance, despite the calls for it from the crowd.

Yeah, the football is slow, it's not very exciting. But it is fascinating. And we've seen throughout last season that the patience does actually pay off a lot of the time, providing we don't commit suicide. The players need to get better at the system, yes. But there's not a lot wrong with the system in terms of delivering results.

I saw a couple of things wrong today.

There were too many occasions where we played the ball across the line from player to player. If we want to stretch a team and pull them out of position, we need to be skipping a player more often. So Ilori to Moore, rather than Ilori to McShane to Moore. We also need to fizz the ball a bit more, so it gets to the player quicker. On top of that we need to make sure we play the ball into the recipient's path more, encouraging them to drive forward. There was too much right to feet where you need to control before you can do anything too often. Finally, we need to have someone on each side who is prepared to hug the touchline in these sorts of situations, and when we switch it to them, it can't be an airy hanging ball to their feet or chest, it has to be a ball ahead of them into space with a decent pace on it so the opposition don't have the chance to just shuffle across whilst it's in the air.

All of these are small adjustments, but they'll turn a good if rather pedestrian system, into a really really good one. It'll come.

[WAZZOCK]

I wasn't there today

I should've stopped reading at this point, what an absolute belmet.

The sending off made this a complete freak of an encounter. Fulham camped on their box the whole match, and you can't really blame them for doing so. Their counter attacking options are so strong, and unfortunately they managed to sneak the equaliser.

Our issue today was the lack of outlet up top. Unfortunately Mendes just cannot cut the mustard, what I would've given to have a fit Yann up top today.

Positives for the day were Kelly continuing his goal scoring run from Tuesday - if he can add a few more goals to his game then he could really become something special. Barrow had a good game, but I'd have liked to see him take on his man a few more times. It was also good to see the three centre back formation used again given it was so effective last season.

A shame not to take the spoils but one we just need to write off, hopefully we can eradicate the silly errors. I fancy our chances of getting a result on Saturday, but we do really need to address our striker problem.

[FiNeRaIn]

I don't understand how you can take any positives from playing an entire game against 10 men against a team in the same division as you and fail to win. He wasn't sent off just after half time or the 60th minute, he was sent off 30 seconds into the game, they should be absolutely shattered by the time they were allowed to equalize. You'd expect a team from a league below to gradually wear a ten man team down and get a result, not take the lead and come away with a point. A result like that is a monumental failure even if the performance was an improvement from QPR.

Where are we with strikers? Its been a problem for over a year and all we have are cheap punts with poor goal scoring records that haven't worked out. Bodvarsson might prove to be a decent team player but his goal scoring record is appalling, we need someone who knows where the net is. They aren't as hard to find as people would have you believe, you just have to pay more than a packet of peanuts and a fiver to get them. And no before everyone gets on their high horses im not talking about spending 15 million and threatening the finances of the club, but we have to accept we will probably be paying between 5-8 million, thats the modern market.

[Lower West]

I don't understand how you can take any positives from playing an entire game against 10 men against a team in the same division as you and fail to win.

There's no divine right to a win. With such a young inexperienced team. Games like this will actually improve them as a unit. Next time they'll be better prepared.

[Oilroyal]

I would have been happy to take a point before today’s game, but after 90 minutes against 10 "weaken" men it confirmed that what I said after the QPR game, for which I got pelted for on here is pretty much where we’re at, nowhere near where some fans believe we are or where we should be. = Cheque book= new owners with money = Stam needing to add a proven Striker.

Even with 10 men Fulham held us off when we should have been out of sight, but what do I know? Compared to the rose-tinted hodnobbers on here.

[biff]

That was utterly vvank and in no way entertaining.

[Oilroyal]

That was utterly vvank and in no way entertaining.

worst than QPR?