Archive for February 11th, 2007
Here we go again: Bolton 2-1 Fulham
A 2-1 defeat in Bolton isn’t the end of the world, but it sometimes feels that Coleman is deliberately handicapping us. Today saw the return of the much hated 4-5-1, with McBride inviting hopeful punts towards him and Helguson stationed wide on the left. It reminds me of when England used to do the same with Emile Heskey; bad in principle, bad in execution, and an insult to the genuine wide men who could’ve played.
That the performance was eventually okay isn’t really the point. If we were knocking on the door it was a gentle tapping, and nobody had thought to fetch a battering ram. Sometimes this team can drive you mad.
We started off fairly well, passing to each other on occasion and having more of possession.Then Diop lost the ball in midfield, Bolton switched from one flank to the other, crossed over Liam’s head (funny, that’s happened before), bundled it back into the danger area and won a penalty when Zat missed the ball and Browny ran into the man. Speed sent Lastuvka the wrong way.
And so on. A far post cross after half-time (a half-time break in which nothing was changed) saw Rosenior beaten to a header, the post saved us but Nolan smashed the rebound home past an exposed Lastuvka. 2-0, goodnight. Fulham pretended to get back into it when Zat Knight thumped an excellent header home following a corner, but 2-1 it stayed. There were signs of life in the second half, but not enough to say anything positive about.
Heroes and villains? Rosenior was partially culpable for both goals, passed like a blind man and generally showed every sign of not being the right back he thinks he is. He has to have a hard look at himself, his culpability for a lot of our goals this season, and his absolutely shocking passing. It’s happened all year, it’s not getting better, someone, somewhere, has to do something. England my foot.
Knight scored a belting header but still played at least 5 long balls to nobody, which is probably five more than Christanval has all season. Not good enough, there are nine other Fulham players, give it to one of them instead. He’s a good defender, particularly with Christanval there to help, but the passing is terrible.
Diop was alright, Volz got bypassed again and should be back at right back by now, Franck lacked his usual adventure, Lastuvka made a great save but kicked badly, McBride needs a jetpack if he’s going to get on the end of our attacking ‘moves’.
Whatever. It’s almost as if continued failure away from home makes failure away from home okay. Bolton were a very ordinary side today but we didn’t have the skill to beat them.
