Craven Cottage Newsround

Go to the foot of this page to find out more about England’s opponents tomorrow.   In short, they’re pretty good.

The ELO ratings system, which I prefer to FIFA’s, has Croatia in 16th position and England in 6th.  But given Croatia’s amazing home record (they have never lost a competitive match in Croatia, did I read?) you might just as well switch those two rankings around.    Throw in England’s uncertain form and Croatia’s bouyancy under new coach Slaven Bilic and you have an even trickier proposition.

The good thing about England is that, if nothing else, this is a team that’s well equipped to get 0-0 draws.  And this is exactly the result the team should be aiming for in Croatia.  I think they’ll get it too.   The team will play careful, risk averse football and hope to spring something from nothing.   True, this is the usual tactic, but it so happens to be the right one for this occasion.   Prediction: 0-0.

It’s quite exciting all this, reminding me of the old games we used to have in Poland and Romania and such places, kicking off at 4pm and commentated on via crackling telephone.  Things have moved on, of course, but it’s been a long time since an England team has travelled into Eastern Europe with such an air of fear about it.   This is a test and a half, and it’ll be interesting to see how the players respond.    Can’t wait to watch things unfold.

(PS: here’s what the Times Fink Tank simulator predicts:

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Last week I previewed an England match talking up a 3-5-2 formation that I thought would beat Macedonia.  This is what the papers told me would happen.  In the real world Steve McLaren went back to basics and threw a 4-4-2 out there, minus Shaun Wright-Phillips and with Stuart Downing.

Now the Guardian is spinning the same tale, and it’s a pickle to know whether to believe them or not.  I think I’ll give them one more chance, so let’s assume it will be a 3-5-2 that goes into battle against the fearsome Croats.    I’ll do a preview tomorrow, but the good news is that Scott Parker is rumoured to be part of things this time around.   Here at CCN we have never missed an opportunity to talk up Scott Parker (nor have we missed any opportunities to denigrate his rival, Strollin’ Michael Carrick), so this is exciting news for us.

So was it just me, or did Rooney and Crouch not look like a good partnership?  There’s something very subtly wrong about the way they play together that makes me think that one or other might need to be sacrificed.  Alternatively, we could do a Macedonia/Ardiles and just go balls to the floor attack, bring in Defoe and go 3-4-3.  Over the last few years, since Hoddle I suppose, tactics have been scrutinised more and more in England, but really we either have 4-4-2 or that 3-5-2 formation that makes everyone so nervous.  Sven went 4-5-1 and that made the BBC crew froth at the mouth.    I haven’t really got a point, but some degree of flexibility, or picking a team to suit a plan/idea, would be nice to read about.  Anyway, on to Fulham:

Niemi on Pearce:

“I like playing with him. I like defenders who aren’t raving and shouting and look like they want to do everything on the pitch. He’s quite laid back and calm.

“He just does his job, he knows what he’s good at. He’s very strong in the air and his positional sense is really good.

“If you ask Pearcey himself, I’m sure he would say the same, he just doesn’t look like the same player as when I joined the Club last year. Physically he looks fitter; he’s got a six-pack and everything. Visibly he’s a different athlete.

“He’s one of those unsung heroes that every team needs, he’s a very likeable person and is a major player for us.”

It’s great to hear players talking up their teammates, and particularly talking up Ian Pearce who has indeed been outstanding this year. I like Pearce too, unfussy but quietly excellent. I’m reading Leo McKinstry’s excellent biography of Sir Alf Ramsey at the moment, and the same things could be said of the latter as a player.

Meanwhile, over at Football365 Chris Coleman explains that good young players are better off at Fulham than some of the bigger clubs:

“What I say to the good young players thinking about joining Chelsea or Manchester United is that they have a much better chance of playing for us,” he said.

“They may be getting the big financial hit to start with when they go there but that won’t last forever.

“You’ve got a much better chance of playing for Fulham, West Ham and clubs like us than they have of getting into Chelsea’s team.”

It’s hard to argue with this. If Shaun Wright-Phillips had moved to Craven Cottage he’d have played another season at the top level by now. Whether he’d have had the same opportunities to play top level Playstation tournaments we really can’t know.

If this means that Fulham are starting to turn towards a youth policy then I’m all for it. There must be a reason that teams like Ipswich have a conveyor belt of gifted youngsters while teams like Fulham fail to bring any significant players through the system. The division we’re in doesn’t help, but there ought to be more fish in the pool.

England have been too average for too long to get excessively down about yesterday’s game, but to my mind the performance was as bad as anything Sven’s team put together. Macedonia were a compact, neat and adequately ambitious team, and may look back on a game in which they could have earned a famous victory, but we should beat teams like this at home.  Macedonia had the best player on the pitch in Goran Pandev, and he could have made a difference with his close control and excellent movement. (This observer was hoping he might do some damage, a 22-1 bet on him for the first goal seemed likely to pay off at one point.)  He nearly scored one and his teammates had chances too.

England could have scored as well, Gary Neville volleyed over from six yards when scoring might just have been easier. Steven Gerrard whammed an angled drive against the top of the cross-bar. Apart from that and some interesting interpretations of forward play from Peter Crouch, not a lot was forthcoming from England. Rooney seems heavy-legged and tense; his play is a world away from the edge of the seat destructiveness we enjoyed from him in 2004.

I won’t repeat myself on Michael Carrick, but if that’s an international holding midfielder I’m Garth Crooks’ butler. Similarly, Frank Lampard is now playing on reputation alone, and should be rested until he is en fuego at Chelsea. He looks jaded and may need a break and this is clearly not the player who was nearly world footballer of the year.

Bright spots: Ledley King, a terrific footballer, showed what he can do. Ashley Cole is having a bad time of things at the moment, much of it brought on by himself, but he’s saved England’s bacon on a number of occasions recently and the thought of a defence without him is not one to entertain. He may be the only world-class player we’re putting out there at the moment (Gerrard would be the other I suppose).

The other good thing is that people will now realise that whatever was wrong in the World Cup has a) not been fixed and b) wasn’t entirely Sven’s fault. How we move forward from here is anyone’s guess, but it’s tempting to think that the team will raise their game for the Croatia match on Wednesday. Sadly this rather lazy thought is probably also doing the rounds in Team England.

It is far too early for a McLaren backlash, but is it too early to wonder what Martin O’Neill might be doing with this bunch at the moment? Idle speculation that achieves nothing, of course, and we should still qualify handily, but I want more from England than this.

Still no Fulham business, so here’s an international preview:

England seem to be going with a flexible 3-5-2 tomorrow.     This gives Gerrard the freedom to attack up the middle, and notionally does the same for the undroppable action man that is Wildfire Frank Lampard.  Michael Carrick will be flexing his shielding muscles in front of the back three, which in reality means he’ll stand a bit deeper than normal, keep his knees clean and play some pretty sideways passes that don’t make trouble for either team.  

It could very well be that McLaren has selected Carrick because he believes we’ll have most of the possession and won’t need a true defensive midfielder, and we’ll see what McLaren really thinks of the player when he picks his team for Croatia.  If the Man Utd midfielder is still in the holding role for that game I will swear out loud no matter where I am… but let’s hold judgement on that until it happens.   I do worry about that space in front of the defence though. Hargreaves has been great, but Paul Robinson has been beaten by a lot of 25 yard screamers in his England career and something smells funny about this.    Perhaps we give players too much space, perhaps it’s just bad luck.

At the back the reliable Terry/Ferdinand axis of evil will again be crucial to our chances, this time supplemented by craggy old Gary Neville in a 3 man back line.   That should be fine.   Shaun Wright-Phillips will be whizzing up and down the right wing, and dear old Ashley Cole will do the same on the left.   Peter Crouch and Wayne Rooney will be our front pairing.  I’ll be watching to see if there’s any kind of Cantona-Cole relationship going on with those two, they seem not to click as well as might be the case.   But this may just be my imagination.

So this England team should be more than good enough to take all the points from Macedonia, particularly at Old Trafford where we do seem to like playing.  

Prediction:  3-1 win

Slight lull in the action, what with the international break, so I’ll put up some of the World Cup piccies that I took over the summer.

Hady and I had a brilliant time. Hamburg, for Ukraine v Saudi Arabia, was a lovely town, very clean with an expensive feel. We were enjoying the vibe, and nodded at authentic Ukrainians as we wandered around (we had the kit you see). They nodded back and you could sense some excitement in the air. Ukraine had blown it badly in their first game against Spain, and they had to win here.

They duly did so, an early goal settling the nerves and a happy habit of scoring at just the right times saw them calmly progress to 4-0. The stadium is new, situated a while outside Hamburg, but it was quite accessible all considered (train/bus/walk all told). It was also surprisingly loud, doubly so because crimes against music were committed aggressively and without shame by the DJ, but it all added to the fun.

Highlights included the realisation that we were a few rows in front of the heavyweight champion of the world and his twin brother, who I learned was also similarly good at boxing. Hady (in her Ukraine top) was photographed with an eager Japanese man too, which was fun. We headed back into town to enjoy the harbour lights and car horn led excitement.

From there it was on to Leipzig, where cross-country transport was good but our timing wasn’t. A helpful taxi driver took us all around the city to hotels and to the ground at breakneck speeds, and we endured a very long queue to get through to the picture postcard ground set high up on a hill… just in time for kick-off.

As new grounds go, this felt fine, surrounded by trees and with outstanding views from everywhere. We had a horn-blower behind us who didn’t shut up all game, but we spared him any violence in the spirit of the tournament’s motto, which I vaguely remember being something to do with friendship among nations. There were a load of corporate gimme attendees too, but the two sets of fans were loud enough and it made for a fun if slightly odd atmosphere. The game was messy, and played in unadulterated 35 degree heat, but we had a great time.

We watched the Argentina v Holland game from the bottle free fanfest in town (I had several bottles of mineral water confiscated in Germany) and retired to our bed happy at seeing such a sadly beautiful town. Leipzig was covered in grafitti and was as different to Hamburg as I am from Garth Crooks, but to me it was the better destination… there was a soul there, and I liked it (for more on this theme see the excellent film “Goodbye, Lenin”, which takes a half-funny look at post-communist Germany).

All in all we had a brilliant time. Our perceptions of Germany were turned upside down, and watching the football was a spine-tingling experience. Yeah, it’s all about the money, and yeah FIFA are crooked as it gets, but they can’t ruin the most important thing, the stuff that happens for 90 minutes on that heavenly grass.

Collins John is profiled in the latest Fourfourtwo magazine.   From this we learn that Jimmy Bullard likes to throw things around: “muffins, apples, bananas…”   Overall Collins comes across as a decent chap, the only slight concern being that he looked up to Patrick Kluivert growing up.  Well Kluivert was/is a Class A idiot, but for a time there he was the complete centre-forward.  Here’s hoping our young forward can show some more in the coming games, I worry that he’ll lose confidence with the way things are going.

In other news, the Guardian reports that none other than Stanley Collymore wants to come back “into the Premiership”.  He vows to be faster and stronger than ever before, which is very laudable but may be hard to pull off in reality.

Lest we forget, Collymore burst onto the scene with Southend in the early nineties, scoring 15 goals in 30 games.  But it wasn’t just his goals, Collymore played with a confidence and single-minded  focus that allowed him to do extremely good things with the ball.  He could be enfuriating to teammates (I remember a Forest (his next club) fanzine running a spoof “Stan’s Diary” feature in which he spent a page talking about himself and how his teammates weren’t worthy - it was very funny) but his goals could be breathtaking.

He moved to Forest in 1993 and scored 41 goals in 64 games, an amazing return, especially given the quality of some of these strikes.  This soon earned him a move to Liverpool, a spell that was seen as a failure but that included another 28 goals in 56 games, a good ratio.   He frequently set up goals for others from wide positions too.

At around this time his personality issues started to make the news, and spells with Aston Villa, Fulham, Leicester, Bradford and Real Oviedo were far less fruitful.   Things got a bit out of hand, to the point where he’s now something of a joke figure in the press.  But we shouldn’t forget that at one point he was one of the most exciting talents in the land, and without wishing to overplay things, the closest we have had to a Ronaldo type player in a long time.  That it didn’t work out is a far more complicated issue than I can do justice to, but it’s a shame for the game that Collymore’s special gifts fizzled out so quickly and one wonders if more could have been done to help him.

The Italians have a theory that the perfect football match should be 0-0; the game can only be perfect if there are no mistakes, and if there are no mistakes there will be no goals.

Fulham and Watford’s collective response to this theory was a 3-3 shambles at Vicarage Road tonight.   Watford looked a poor side, muscular, effervescent, but short of class and overly reliant on long punts.   Fulham were unable to rise above this and found themselves a goal down after Marlon King had slipped through the offside trap and bounced his finish over Niemi’s dive.  This was immediately preceded by a number of 50/50 offside decisions against Collins John, called by a trigger happy safety first linesman.

In the second half Volz stumbled instead of controlling the ball, Watford swept forwards and a perfect cross found Ashley Young in the six yard box for 2-0.   It was embarrassing to see.

Fulham’s reaction was to bring on McBride, which immediately encouraged the team to lump aimless balls towards him.  Radzinski and Routledge also came on, and soon Fulham were camped in the Watford half.  Luckily Watford’s defending was worse than Fulham’s attacking, and Brian McBride pounced on a poor defensive header to volley home with some skill.

A fellow in the pub thought that this was a Radzinski game, to which I countered that it wouldn’t be if we kept on with the long stuff.   Seconds later a cloud-scraping punt was expertly flicked on by a high-flying Diop, Radz kept it in acrobatically, and Helguson climbed to head in an equaliser.

But there was more.  Another attack saw Watford decline to clear the ball despite several good chances.  The ball bobbled and skewered all over the place, before Helguson and/or the hapless Damien Francis rammed the ball home from six yards.  Whether it was an o.g. or some more predatory play by HH was immaterial: Fulham had just pulled off the great escape.

Except they hadn’t.  Watford woke up again, pumped more balls at Fulham, and a snatched volley from that man Young flew past Niemi for 3-3.

This was a poor game of football.  Neither team did much with the ball on the deck, and the goals were all largely preventable.   That we got a point is one thing; that we nearly got cleaned out by a team like Watford is quite another.  I know that playing away is hard, and that physical teams can be hard to play against, but this was desperate stuff, and beyond the goals (at one point a single goal seemed beyond us, yet somehow we ended up with three) and the nice away point, it’s hard to see a positive in the way anyone played.

But let’s try:  Brown got about, Helguson put himself about well, and McBride’s finish for the important first goal was exemplary.   Against that, Rosenior’s distribution was awful, the defence seemed hesitant, Bocanegra looked every bit the square peg, and Volz was having an off night..

Ah, I’m frustrated.  It is a good point, and the team showed spirit to get it.  Well done, lads, another good result.  But that was not good football.

This is a Fulham site, but occasionally we discuss other things. Yesterday I saw a goal that will be replayed for a long time, so I wanted to post a video here. Robin van Persie isn’t my favourite footballer, a talented but apparantly egotisical Dutchman, van Persie isn’t someone that come across as being easy to like. But the boy can play. I judge a good goal as a goal that I could never have scored in a million years. If that sounds odd, think about it: some goals look good, but an average park hoofer like me might have been able to pull them off with a bit of luck and a following wind. This is particularly true of things like diving headers and random piledrivers, which don’t need all that much skill (relative to other things done on a football pitch).

Well van Persie’s volley was verging on the impossible. The ball flew over at pace and reached him at around waist height on the edge of the area. He only went and buried the bloody thing, leaping high into the air and releasing a volley of such precise power that the excellent Scott Carson had no chance.

Here it is: