Craven Cottage Newsround

Michael Brown and Sean Davis have previous. Last year our skipper made a fairly violent lunge at Davis’s ankle, and there was a bit of to-do in the papers afterwards, notably from Davis saying that Brown was “always just an average player” or something equally cutting. I’ve got a YouTube video of the incident on this site somewhere.

In any event, Brown missed the Portsmouth away match earlier in the year, so Saturday’s game represented the first chance for the two of them to play against each other since that incident. In the end nothing happened, but there was a mild squaring up that I was too late to photograph, but here’s the aftermath. You’ll note that Brown starts some way away from referee Mike Riley, is called back, lowers his head in that way he has, then accepts his lecture without obviously showing any signs of respecting the referee. Meanwhile Antti Niemi skulks around the back of the meeting. The guilty pair then jog off without so much as a glance at one another.

Nothing earth shattering, but I quite liked the sequence.

For a long time this season we all wondered if the glass was half full or half empty.  Well now it does seem to have tilted towards the latter, and while we should survive, everyone’s getting a bit nervous about the whole thing. 

Last minute equalisers have served us well and without Bullards Bolton penalty, Franck’s Charlton effort, Christanval’s volley at West Ham and Pearce’s hobbler on Saturday we’d be in deep trouble.   Of course, we lost a game to Man Utd in the last minute and lost a lead to Watford without much time left too, but we have, unquestionably been sailing close to the wind.  Really close in fact.  

We’ve only outplayed Arsenal this year, which is a weird thing to type.  The Everton win came from a deflected shot from Claus Jensen, the Newcastle home win came from a bad backpass by Nicky Butt that transformed a very sleepy game.  We beat them away with smoke and mirrors.  We beat Middlesbrough when, under severe pressure, Moritz Volz won us a half-dodgy penalty.  Sheffield Utd:  Bullard hit a blinding free kick to lift the turgidity.

I’m not trying to belittle these wins, or the last minute draws.  That’s how football works and we can’t all play like Man Utd.  But looking back at our points there’s no ‘good run’, there’s no sustained good football and there’s really precious little to celebrate beyond that wonderful win over Arsenal and the spirited draw at Stamford Bridge. 

I suppose what I’m getting at is this:  if you’re looking for a team to surprise the masses by falling into a relegation spot from nowehere, aren’t we a good selection?   We may very well lose at Everton, Man City are winning away at the moment so that won’t be easy, Reading away will be tough, Blackburn at home will be evilly tense, Arsenal away could leave Motty looking for his calculator, Liverpool at home may perversely represent our best chance for points, knowing how things work with this team.  All of which leaves Middlesbrough away.  We might need some points from this one.

Knee-jerk?  Growing sense of fear, more like.  It won’t take much to rescue us, and heaven knows I’d rather be Fulham than Sheffield Utd or Wigan at this point, but I think we’re closer to a disaster than a lot of people think.

UPDATE: have a look at this!  Priceless.