Craven Cottage Newsround

Portsmouth attacked a lot but Niemi performed like Superman and kept them at bay.  Man City attacked a bit, stuck three past last week’s hero, and waltzed to an easy 3-1 win.

Coleman went with Operation 0-0 again, using McBride to watch the high balls and 5 midfielders to contest possession.  But it didn’t work.   Lady luck took the easy option and helped the home team, but this Fulham side has been walking a tightrope for some time, and it was hard to get aggrieved about the bad result.

City’s first goal came when Corradi, who looks like a cross between Monty Don and Rivaldo, beat our offside trap to volley past Niemi.   Might have saved it last week, but the ball nestled in the bottom corner after 11 mins.  Plan in tatters, Fulham were caught again when Carlos Bocanegra (anglicised as Charlie Blackmouth my friend tells me) was half-fouled and half-tackled in midfield.  City broke and Corradi again found himself clean through, and Niemi was easily beaten high over his left shoulder.   And in attempting to recover Fulham left nobody back from a free-kick, and Joey Barton slid home a third on the counter.

Rubbish! we all thought, hoping that something would happen at half time.  What we got was Helguson and John, the latter scored with a lashed left foot volley straight away.  Sadly he had handled from an offside position in the buildup, so it didn’t count.  His next goal was disallowed for offside, but it was touch and go and a sympathetic linesman might have let him go.   He completed his hat-trick with a neat lob, and at 3-1 with a bit of momentum a draw suddenly seemed possible.  But no, there was a lack of progress from there, and the game fizzled out into a routine 3-1 defeat.

So what went wrong?  Partly the team selection: 4-5-1 is fine when it works, but when we were one down things needed shaking up, as this team is not one that can attack.  Claus Jensen, on whom so much depends, was anonymous, even when we attacked in the second half.   Boa Morte got about, Bouba Diop looked injured, and Volz and Bocanegra still look like well-meaning defenders being asked to do too much.   Pearce’s less than optimal form continued, and while Zat and Franck played quite well, Liam struggled.  This in a week when his manager had discussed his future international prospects too.

The second half was better, and surely Coleman must play two forwards next week.  Reading are more than capable of pulling a Wigan against us, and we need to take the game to them.  I hope Brown will be back, and I hope Collins John gets a run; he looked very sharp today, give him a game.

When all’s said and done, away defeats will happen and there’s no point in getting too worked up about it, but inspiring it wasn’t, and there will be more than a few disappointed supporters if we see 4-5-1 at home next week.