According to the Guardian today Coleman kept the players in the dressing room for an hour after the game. I don’t know if that includes time for showering and changing, or if he ranted for the full 60 minutes, but clearly the man wasn’t happy.
In the Evening Standard Coleman says:
“They steamrollered us. We hardly got hold of the ball in midfield, and when we did, we gave it away far too easily. We had a game plan, but it went out of the window after 10 minutes…..
the disappointing thing for us is that we didn’t compete.”
Indeed they didn’t. Coleman goes on to talk about a top half finish, and he’s right to be optimistic, but my goodness they’ll have to be better than they were on Sunday.
The Standard also mentions Zat Knight’s absence, but the problems on Sunday were deeper than just one centre-half. He might have helped, he might not, but Fulham were exposed all over the field and only Bouba Diop really looked like a top-flight footballer.
Geoff H at There’s Only One F in Fulham wonders:
“The one consolation is we are better than that performance – aren’t we?”
Well that’s the big question. The same site offers some fair player ratings, including this about Michael Brown:
Michael Brown; 4 Dismal performance from a player who still has a lot to prove in a Fulham shirt. His lacklustre performance and poor passing were overshadowed by an unforgivable and totally unnecessary potentially career threatening two footed tackle on Ryan Giggs. Exsctly what you would expect from a player who has spent a lot of his career playing up north and it is not the first time we have seen it in the handful of games he has played for us. If you want to carry on like that Michael, Fulham is certainly not the Club for you!
Well I couldn’t agree more. If you’re going to play like that you’d better have something about you if you’re going to stick around, and I can see no evidence that Brown is a Premiership midfielder.
Ho, it’s only one game. A long way to go. But it would’ve been nice to start well. Mr Mo Mentum can be a tricky blighter to stop.
