Rob’s back!

Following the Fulham

Hurray!

Kuqi scores too

David Healy wasn’t the only white to score an international goal this weekend.  Here’s Shefki Kuqi bundling home for Finland against Azerbaijan.  As if you couldn’t tell, his is the third….

Thanks to Jari’s Mullet at TFI.

This n that

We’ve been linked to Portsmouth long-range goal specialist Matthew Taylor.

Taylor’s a good player, but is left-footed. Currently we have Paul Konchesky at left-back, ably backed up by Nathan Ashton. In front of them there’s Hameur Bouazza, who has made a very promising start to his Fulham career, Seol Ki-Hyeon, and Lee Cook. Taylor wouldn’t come cheap, so are we really going to spend big money for a player we don’t need?

There’s an unsubstantiated rumour that the Michael Parkhurst thing is a done deal. I say unsubstantiated because it really is. Anyone out there know any more?

I haven’t mentioned my trip to Southend on Saturday yet. We had a great time. Martin, who you know as my co-author on the Fulham Review, is a Southend fan, so we’ve been trying to get to games here and there. Anyway, it just so happened that with it being the international break there was no Fulham ‘action’ to distract us, so off we went: Southend v Cheltenham Town.

Southend were relegated from The Championship (Division 2 in old money) last year, and sold their star player, Freddie Eastwood, to Wolves soon after. Many, or me, expected them to bounce back up (I have money on it), but this season has not been consistently successful for Southend. Wins and performances have been punctuated by meltdown, including a recent shambles against Nottingham Forest. So we weren’t really sure what to expect: on the one hand, Cheltenham were bottom of the league; on the other, Southend’s top scorer Leon Clarke was suspended after doing bad things in that Forest game.

We sat down four rows in. I took a picture and was instantly gestured at by a steward. “Don’t do that again” he seemed to be saying. “Fine,” I thought, “well done for keeping me in line.” What possibly harm could my photographing the empty away end have done?

The game started quite well. On loan forward Dean Morgan (not good enough for Luton, apparantly) surged through a number of defenders and set up Matt Harrold. Harrold was clean through with no defender near him, but rushed his shot, which flew straight at the ‘keeper and off for a corner. Turning point, we thought.

Indeed it was. Cheltenham scored twice soon after. I remember little about either, except that neither seemed unpreventable. Then a free-kick on the verge of half-time was headed against the side of the Southend post. It would’ve been 3-0 at the break, at home; not far off a disgrace given the standard of the opposition.

Steve Tillson had work to do.

Soon things were better. Mark Gower, an old fashioned three-quarter paced winger, adept at dribbling with either foot, worked a splendid opening to pull a goal back. I think it was deflected on the way in, but we had a supporting post in between us and the point of impact, so it was hard to tell. Then Steve (?) Hamill surged through on goal, more neat buildup play, and stuck home a second. Hurray! Embarrassment avoided Southend sat back a bit, then rolled up their sleeves for one last push.

But it was not to be.  2-2 was sort of fair given how Cheltenham started, but after half time Southend showed what a fine midfield they have, and will probably be upset at not winning.  We left the ground happy to have seen some nice football and a good, open game. A game played by Steves and Daves and Kevins too. Almost everyone was English, which is not an issue to ponder here, but was refreshing nonetheless.

Football as it was some time ago, I felt. And in many ways the better for it.

Milestone City, Arizona

As of today we’ve passed 50,000 visitors, according to my wordpress stats.  

Small beer for most sites, but a milestone for us.

Hurray, and thanks for coming! 

It does make me wonder..

Watching the U.S. play S. Africa on Saturday morning was not exactly the highlight of my weekend.    The U.S. won the Nelson Mandela Challenge Cup by a first half goal by Bundesliga player, Steve Cherundolo, but let’s be honest, South Africa dominated most of the second half.

Captain Carlos Bocanegra was subbed out at half and his captaincy was certainly missed as the defense was never able to stay organized after that.  It made me realize what an asset he has become to the MNT even if he does have the occasional mental lapse.

Dempsey played 65 minuets before being subbed out for the wonder kid Jozy Altidore of the N.Y. Redbulls and who was rumored as of late to have interest from Real Madrid. Bob Bradley, manager of the U.S. squad, was trying to get some new players into the mix and see how they looked. This saved players like Dempsey and Bocanegra from overwork and allowed them to go home fit but not worn down.

But here’s my observation: every match I watch Dempsey play for the U.S., he almost always lays down a pass or two that I say to myself, “That was genius”! Creative, unexpected, with the right pace and backspin or swirl. He did it again on Saturday. Several fine balls to slice open the defense of South Africa to players making runs. In one instance he hooked up with young Freddy Adu from Benfica and Adu should have scored (he didn’t) as the ball left him one on one with the keeper.

But here’s what makes me wonder.  Why don’t we ever see Dempsey creating those same sort of passes for Fulham.  Seems we could surely use some of that as there have been many times this season that everyone complained that we played uninspired, uncreative football.  You can’t say it’s the difference between international play and league play.  After all, you see teams like Arsenal and Liverpool do it all the time.  And there are lesser teams (table wise) that also can cut you up with nifty diagonal runs and wonderful throughballs.  Plays that can in a split-second turn the game on it’s head.

So I started asking myself, why do you so rarely see the throughball played at FFC? I can think of a whole lot of reasons why it hasn’t happened but don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t happen.  But instead of me expounding on my theories, I was wondering if anyone else has thought about this and why you think it’s happening, or not happening in this case?