King Kong Still Reigns – Liverpool 2-0 Fulham

(See the previous post to explain the headline)

But could we really have expected anymore? I mean really? This is the splash page on Soccernet today.

Maybe on a lucky day? But away at Liverpool, with talent like they have, the money that they have poured into the squad and the manager that runs the team? There’s no way that we had any business pulling a draw or a win at Anfield. But then again, that’s why they play the games. Because you just never know. But on this day we were only lucky for so long. And then the shit hit the fan…so to speak.

Torres, who is nothing but quality, with pace, touch and finishing skills, weaved his way into the box at 84 minuets, (Sound familiar?) scored an impressive goal screwing Hughes into the ground and catching Niemi flat footed. It really looked as if Niemi should have done better. Then just a few moments later the house of cards collapsed. With a possession rate of 36% to 65% and with shots on goal of 12 to 3, all in Liverpool’s favor, it was no wonder that Bocanegra tripped Crouch as he rushed into the box which resulted in a penalty kick and goal by Gerrard. The foul was actually inadvertent and it was outside the box, but really, did it matter? A Crouch header against the bar in the final minute of the first half? A wide open Gerrard missing from 20 meters out? A misplayed ball by Stefanovic in the box that caused confusion and near disaster?

With all that said, I thought overall FFC played a pretty good game and found myself sitting at pub, all by myself, cheering out loud for every tackle and near chance we had, though the near chances were infrequent. None the less there are a few points I will make and then will leave it to Rich to make his game report.

First, as to the subs, I thought Bouazza was a breath of fresh air. Healy was miserable all day. The team’s long ball tactics just don’t work in today’s modern game and those balls that did get down the right side were so often mishandled by Healy that I was truly appalled. Some of the worst first touches on a Prem team I’ve ever seen. I also thought the subbing of Kamara for Demspey ended up hurting the team. Kamara, as has been the case recently, showed nothing and at least Dempsey, though not having the best of games, was getting to balls and battling. At half the announcers were saying that Benayoun, who has been effective recently, had been shut down by Dempsey’s positive play the other direction.

Kuqi was a like a surging locomotive that ran out of steam towards the end of the game. But he was very responsible for keeping us in things the first half. He was winning most of the long balls that were anywhere close to him. But what was keeping FFC in the game the first half was the winning of second balls.  Second balls are a thing you don’t hear a lot of fans talk about but coaches talk about all the time. Fulham were winning the second balls in the first half. But the second half, because of fatigue on Kuqi’s part or poor passing by his teammates the second balls were just not happening because there were no second balls. They were not finding their way to Kuqi anymore.

Eventually, the poor defending killed us on the goal by Torres. I actually thought that the Fulham backs did a fairly good job. Defensively they were organized and Danny Murphy did an excellent job of slowing things down until the back line could get set up. Even taking a yellow at one point to slow down Gerrard. But offensively the defense played some horrible balls up front that were lost immediately when we really needed possession.

Lastly, I hate to end of a negative note. But Davis was nothing short of terrible. I kept wondering why Sanchez didn’t call in Bouazza earlier and have Dempsey move into the middle. Or have Murphy play up a bit since Davis was having a bad time of it and allow Smertin to play back. But something has to be done with Davis as it’s just not working out with him. Last week a lot of people criticized Danny Murphy. I know Rich came to his defense and I agreed that he hadn’t played 90 min. football for a very long time. But he certainly found his rhythm today and when we look at The Times stats I’m sure we will see that a lot of balls came through Murphy today and he made a lot of tackles. Some of the critical.

The bottom line is Fulham have improved their roster since last season. But it still can’t come close to the top 4 teams in quality and depth. And quite frankly I’m OK with that because we are a small club. We battled with Liverpool at the Cop and held them for 85 minutes. But 85 minutes is not enough. We are going to need a few more players in the next transfer window for us to compete, to hold draws late in games and to surprise a team here or there. That is, “IF” we are interested in anything more that survival.