Craven Cottage Newsround

Here.

Someone on TiFF met Eddie Johnson outside Tesco in Wimbledon Village.  Eddie came across as a very nice person, and suggested that he is starting against Man Utd tomorrow.  Take that with a pinch of salt, of course, but it would make sense.

Consider the following thought experiment: hypothetical player A might average 6/10 in three games, but do so by getting marked at 5/10, 9/10, 4/10.  Player B might average 6/10 by getting 6/10, 7/10, 5/10.   Is one better than the other?  For the purposes of surviving a difficult situation, I think you’re almost bound to take the high risk high reward approach.   So while you might be guaranteed a safer game from the reliable Nevland, Johnson is more likely to make life impossibly difficult for the United defence.  Not likely, more likely.

All of which is based on scant evidence, but this is my working hypothesis for now.

(this is one of my naval gazing meditations on life and the role of football therein. Walk on by if this isn’t your bag!)

(more…)

Brede Hangeland has played Man Utd before.

“We’re playing reasonably well and we can win every game,” he said. “It’s just that we haven’t had the luck in our last few games.

“It’s a tough game to swallow [the West Ham result] because you feel like you should have won it. I felt it was a free kick when they scored the goal and it makes you feel a bit sorry for yourself after a game like that but what can you do? You have to focus on the coming games and hopefully we can do some magic on Saturday.”

Do some magic. Why not? I have money on there being more than six goals. Just in case.

Meanwhile, more Roy. Also a picture of him pointing again.

“There is an element of luck and sometimes you can play well and lose, or play badly and win. I am very much aware that wins are the order of the day for us and if we don’t get some soon then our predicament will worsen.

Indeed.

“If we work on the basis that 40 points is a minimum then it’s pretty easy to work out how many wins we’ll need but I don’t know how many points will be sufficient for safety this year. If the top teams keep disposing of the bottom teams then the points total will be lower. I don’t like thinking of it in those terms. I like to concentrate on the game ahead and make certain that I as a coach, and the players as players, are ready for the game.”

Finally, here’s an update on the fans’ forum discussion the other night. I’ve steered clear of the subject here because it’s been more than adequately covered in the other forums, and because it has never really affected me. As such any tubthumping on my part would seem somewhat inauthentic. I do, however, hear some of the stories, and there’s no doubt that something is not quite right with the way that (the generally well behaved) Fulham fans are treated, home and away.

So it’s nice to see the club taking steps to engage with supporters. I think we all saw an improvement in general attitude before the West Ham game, and David McNally has suggested that we should see more improvements at each of the remaining home games.

I sit in the Johnny Haynes Stand, which is not the main area of concern. We do get the ridiculous bottle top checks, but by and large we are left alone. Also helping here is the fact that I have the cheapest seats available, which attract a lot of day-trippers and so are fairly quiet. The back of the Hammersmith End is hardly intimidating, but as far as Fulham goes this is the area where stewards are most inclined to flex their muscles (I’m ignoring the away end because they do too. Sorry, cheap shot). There’s always a fine line with these things: the club must be seen to do the right thing by all the authorities, but must also remember that, however much money is coming from Sky, supporters do ultimately make football clubs what they are.

There was something on TiFF with Richard “Game 39″ Scudamore talking about future plans possibly picking up new fans and losing old ones, something he thinks is acceptable but which to many of us is symptomatic of the game’s long march up its own backside. Football could keep on self-improving, trying to get rid of these nasty people who stand and shout and who don’t respect safety officers’ authority, and this would doubtlessly make a lot of people silently happy. But it’s not the way things should go.

Fulham seem committed to sorting things out. Which is a good start.

Read this.  On whether relegation is possibly a good thing.  It’s not a Fulham article, but Martin knows Fulham well and mentions the team a fair bit.  Good read.

Dempsey on Soccernet.

“The other guys on the team will go, ‘There’s Team America,’ and it’s good fun,” Dempsey said. “It’s good having guys you played with. The big thing for me is having Brian around because he’s just a class act, a veteran, a good person, a great player. He’s kind of a role model, a guy you look to emulate.”

Nice to see McBride getting some praise.  And I’m glad the players are confident…

(Mrs Dempsey the educational psychologist, eh?  Cool)

I was sharing some statistics with Rich the other day which led us to an email discussion. The stats came from Saturday’s game against West Ham and they were published on the Telegraph website.

What caught my attention was that Clint Dempsey was given the Man of the Match award. They said that Dempsey had attempted five shots, set up three chances, and made two flick-ons.  This surprised me because I didn’t think Clint had had that great a game. However, comparing the statistics of Dempsey and Bullard I started to understand why Clint was named over Jimmy.

So here’s how the stats laid out.

JB CD
5/1 5/1 Attempts on target
2 2 Key passes
4 3 Crosses
0 4 Ball recoveries
1 6 Clearances
37 27 Good passes
12 4 Bad passes
75% 85% Passing percentage
1 1 Tackles

In some areas the two were very close. But it looks like Clint did more defensive duties than Jimmy and Clint actually had a higher passing percentage. Now I think we need to think of Jimmy as more of a withdrawn forward, so he wouldn’t be expected to win as many balls and make as many clearances. But if that is true, why is it that we saw Jimmy pulling back into the defensive third of the field so often? We’ve been lamenting the fact that Brian McBride seems to be left alone too often.

So is Bullard trying to make too much happen himself?

The reason I ask this is Rich and I have both noticed several times during recent games that he has been tracking back so much that he has sometimes ended up taking the ball off his own teammates’ feet. Once on Saturday it was actually a bit embarrassing as Danny Murphy had recovered, or was about to recover a ball in our own defensive third, and Bully comes screaming back, pulls the ball off his foot and dribbles back towards his own goal, almost getting himself into trouble. A rule of thumb is if the ball falls between two teammates, the player facing forward always takes the ball. He can see the field better. It reminded me a bit of school ball, where the kid with the quite inflated ego comes and grabs every ball from his teammates because he thinks he’s the star.

Now I’m not saying that Jimmy Bullard is that sort of player. But there’s a suggestion that perhaps he doesn’t trust his own players, and that’s not good. He is a creator and the more he touches the ball in advanced areas, the more good things seem to happen. But I think he just needs to relax and stay forward a bit more, trusting his teammates to work things out behind him.

2-0 win over Derby.

Look at this team:

Fulham: Keller; Omozusi, Baird, Bocanegra, Kallio; Seol, Timlin, Elliott, Bouazza; Smertin, Healy

Nice to see the reserve games being used properly, something that never seemed to happen in the past. I’m not sure that’s right about Smertin up front, but the rest looks pretty good. Baird getting more time at CB is important; he may have a future there and needs to get used to the positional adjustments of being in the middle again.

For about the 90th reserve game in a row, I really was going to go, but yet again, I sort of just didn’t.

Eddie Johnson on being here.

Nothing earth shattering, but worth a read. As we said before, Johnson was very keen to move to Fulham. Obviously we wish him well.

Daniel Cousin is still in limbo.

“The matter is still pending,” said a Fifa spokesman. “There is no time frame yet.”

Just how complicated is this decision? If he’s not allowed to move say so. If he is, well, say that instead and let him come to London. I assume we need more than Daniel Cousin to save the season at this point, but as they say, every little helps. Fifa couldn’t make this decision earlier because the key people were on jollies in Ghana, and now they’re back…. catching up on emails?

He did score the other day though.

Cousin broke the offside trap to gather Barry Ferguson’s pass and held off his man well before rounding goalkeeper Greg Fleming to score a good goal from a tight angle.

Later, this happened:

But Boyd wasn’t to be denied and he latched on to a tremendous defence-splitting pass by Steven Davis to round Fleming and tap in.

Nice to see Steve Davis continuing to play well.

Also, Wayne Brown has gone on a short loan to Brentford.

I await news that the entire Man Utd squad has been hit by a mystery flu bug. Hasn’t happened yet, but we must have hope.

UPDATE:  Colin’s passing stats are up.  Interesting as ever.

Last week I wrote the former Fulham player Steve Marlet was training with the Chicago Fire and trying out for a roster spot.  As promised, I’ve been keeping on eye on Marlet and Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Tribune’s Red Card Blog is saying that Marlet is still with the team and made the trip from Florida to Mexico to finish their preseason training. Marlet featured in a friendly last week against Toronto FC but did not score.

In another story of a former Fulham player, well a youth academy player, does anyone remember the name Dan Stratford? MLSNET.com has an interesting story on the young man and how he ended up on trail with DC United.

Last year another player from the Fulham youth system made their way to the States and tried out with DC. His name was Yinka Casal. He was the leading scorer for the Fulham reserves in the 05-06 season. Casal did make the reserve team and then was released in July of last year.

“All I can say is that in the games I’ve seen us play, we’re not getting the points. I’m not seeing us outplayed; I’m seeing the boys work very hard and create goal chances. If I were to take any positives it would have to be that but, of course, if you asked whether I would swap that for bad performances and wins, of course I would.”

From the official.

That’s the season really isn’t it? In the final analysis we’re perhaps 5% short of something or other in several areas, and when you add up these small deficits they become larger deficits. No need to go on about the same things we’ve been going on about for months, but it’s been quite dispiriting.

On a happier note, we made some excellent gravy tonight.

Here

Balls.

Everyone’s been on about the handball.  What about the ABH?

What do you think?

1 - Roy Hodgson has undoubtedly made it harder for opponents to score against us. This has had a side-effect though: we’re not looking very threatening going forwards. In your opinion, do we:

a) keep it tight and try to grind out some results
b) open up a bit. The Australians sometimes say “he’s not going to die wondering” about an aggressive batsman. With so few games remaining we should look to take the initiative.

2 - Brian McBride looked isolated and ineffective against West Ham. To make more happen going forwards, do we:

a) give him a partner up front to work with
b) give someone else the starting centre-forward role and use McBride as a sub if required.

3 - Danny Murphy has struggled with his passing in recent matches, and has also shown himself to be a fairly average defender. However, Roy Hodgson has said that he likes having two players behind Bullard to give Jimmy more freedom, and we don’t have too many options. In addition, Leon Andreasen will be suspended for Man Utd. Do we:

a) simply replace Andreasen with Smertin or Volz for the next game
b) as a), but also drop Murphy

4 - Simon Davies will return from his suspension on Saturday. Do we:

a) bring him back as a straight replacement for Diomansy Kamara
b) something else

5 - We were all miserable after Saturday, but other teams are struggling too. Do we:

a) still expect to survive
b) assume that we’re in deep trouble now, and that relegation is likely.