Craven Cottage Newsround

This week’s post game interview on the Official is short. Hodgson is clearly agitated with the turn of events and the officiating of the game. And he damn well should be.

I was just today trying to piece together the many times this season that we have been robbed of a win or a draw because of poor officiating. Of course we’ve not helped ourselves too many times as well. But bad officiating in itself has cost us at least 5 points. Am I missing some? I’ve got a very poor memory when it comes to this sort of thing. Maybe someone can remember the specifics. But if it was 5 points, that would bring us two spots out of relegation.

Observed this morning when walking from Tooting to Balham.

Back to football tomorrow.

from all the Fulham misery.  Our friend Shefki Kuqi is on his way out of Crystal Palace.   After being substituted yesterday the crowd jeered and Shefki made ‘a crude gesture’.

Fans’ reactions (13 pages and counting!)

Story

Poor fellow.  He wasn’t great but he had his uses and I’m sure a Championship side ought to be able to use him somehow.

Did somebody say something about dreams fading and dying?

A kick in the teeth, in more ways than one. Angled cross into the box, Luis Boa Morte in a position of no danger, but, unpredictable as ever, the old bugger chested the ball forwards towards the six yard box. Niemi was alert to the danger but Solano had seen possibilities too, the two collided and the ball trickled into the Fulham net.

Had Niemi claimed the ball before contact? Had Solano fouled him? Had Solano handled the ball into the net? These questions could not be resolved and the goal was awarded.

The game had been absorbing rather than entertaining. Chances were created, but not necessarily good ones. Perhaps the best fell to debutant Eddie Johnson, ghosting in at the far post, but his half volley flew high into the stand. Difficult chance, but in such moments are reputations made, seasons saved. Before that Dempsey had made half a dozen attempts to get past Robert Green, but had not found the power or the accuracy to do so. Bullard prodded and prompted throughout but also found that West Ham’s underrated defence was not in a generous mood. West Ham had little outright threat going forwards but showed considerable ability all over the pitch. In particular Fulham never fully shackled Mark Noble, and West Ham’s midfielder was influential in much of what his team did.

For Fulham, deprived of Simon Davies through suspension, much went according to plan. Hangeland, though unusually nervous on the ball, was again commanding, and Paul Stalteri showed the reliability that good full-backs are known for. Particularly impressive was Leon Andreasen. The young Dane had some terrible touches with the ball, but made a number of very important defensive contributions. He curbed his natural excitability after an early yellow and got on with playing spoiler. He also attacked when able, and surely has a good future ahead of him.

Sadly he chose to dispute the legitimacy of the winning goal and earned himself a second yellow card. This will bring a suspension for the Manchester United game, an absence we can ill afford. This team is showing some signs of promise but four or five players are not replaceable. Andreasen is one of them.

My walk back through Bishop’s Park was a miserable one. I pulled my hood up and sunk my chin into my chest. I closed my eyes, I tried not to think about what’s about to happen. But I know that it’s going to take a miracle to save this season now.

Gallery.  Hade bought me a camera for my birthday, so here’s what we came up with today: 

Leon Andreasen breaks, with Clint outside him

Mixed emotions:  Johnson about to make his debut, while Dempsey realises he is to be sacrificed

The new man in action.  He would switch flanks soon after.  Why on the wings though?  McBride accomplished little up the middle, I was surprised that Johnson was not given the centre-forward role.

Andreasen raiding again.  He’s becoming one of my favourite players.

The end of the world.  Late concession, Andreasen sent off.

Well, we played well enough. Well enough to draw - at home - against another London Club. We had our chances all right. But the ball didn’t drop quite right and Dempsey didn’t pop it over the keeper and Johnson winged it high and…we could just keep going couldn’t we?

So as I wrote, we played well enough for a draw. In fact that is how the game should have ended. Salano is not marked well by Murphy and breaks free. He gets to the ball at the same time as Niemi. The ball falls, Niemi gets kicked in the face and the ball goes off the arm of Salano. Howard Webb, who wouldn’t let either team play all day as he called foul after foul for good hard play, didn’t call the hand ball. Just as he didn’t call handballs for two other Fulham shots that went off of West Ham players in their box. Such is life at Fulham.

It was hard for me to enjoy todays game. I watched on Fox Soccer Channel and knowing how important this game was, my stomach was in knots the whole 90 min. I think it’s fair to say, we are wading in deeper and deeper and there may be no coming back. At least for this year.

Feel free to post your thoughts until Rich comes in with his match report.

This week Roy seems to have delegated video responsibilities to Leon Andreasen. I’m at work so can’t watch. Anyone care to report on what he’s saying?

Ian Pearce has gone to Southampton on loan. We all thought he’d be going to see Chris Coleman of Coventry, but no. Assuming he’s fit this is a fine signing for the Saints: Pearce always has been underrated and even at this stage of his career is a very useful defender. And let’s not forget That Goal against Portsmouth last year, the single most heroic sporting endeavor I think I’ve seen. Maybe.

UPDATE: Roy’s video is up (cheers, Jamie)

(interesting link on the official: “Win Fulham’s Number 9” - they’re raffling off David Healy? Whatever works, I guess)

Following the van Basten vid from the other week, enjoy this: Karim Benzema of Lyon.

Look at the skill on 00:35 secs!

Man Utd are in for him now, but Lyon are asking for £45 million. Serious.

Sky Sports recycling the Official feature on Paul Konchesky. Typical footballer talk, nothing much said of interest.

The BBC is determined that we should not get carried away with Roy’s Revival:

Some selected cuts:

Fulham need to beat a London club in the Premier League for the first time this season, and hope Birmingham lose to Arsenal, if they’re to claw their way out of the relegation zone when the final whistle is blown. Even then they will also need a six-goal swing.

Roy Hodgson has 12 games remaining to save Fulham’s top-flight status. Their current tally of 19 points from 26 matches is 10 points fewer than their previous lowest to this same stage of a Premier League season.

West Ham have won two more away Premier League games (five) than Fulham have managed in total home and away. The Eastenders have been static in 10th place in 2008, with the best defensive record outside the ‘Big Four’.

The Hammers hold an unbeaten Premier League record at Craven Cottage; they have picked up 10 points out of 12 on their trips to Fulham since 2002.

And then they point out that we have:

6. Lost the lead in 11 matches, and flittered away an unequalled 25 points from winning positions. They were in front against Arsenal (a), Middlesbrough (h), Aston Villa (a), Chelsea (h) and West Ham (a), and went on to lose all five games.

7. Conceded a higher percentage of goals in the second half than any other side (33 of 44, 75%).

9. Lost the last four London derbies, and not won any of the last 14; drawn eight and lost six since Chris Coleman’s side beat Arsenal 2-1 at the Cottage on 29 November 2006.

10. Five fixtures are scheduled for March, the first three against north-west opposition; home to Manchester United, away to Blackburn, and home to Everton. Then it’s a long trip to Newcastle and not so long journey to Derby.

Christ, have we any chance? Luckily for us, things have changed since all those bad streaks started. Or at least we think they have.

Healy to Ipswich? This makes so much sense. Magilton is a Northern Ireland favourite, Ipswich have always been clever with loan signings, this seems likely. If we could somehow get young Danny Haynes in return I’d be delighted, but that’ll never happen.

Eddie Johnson and Simon Elliot had runouts with the reserves last night. The team lost 2-0 to West Ham, but both players are said to have looked decent. Elliot played the full 90 while Johnson was pulled on the hour, which was planned. Was this because there’s a possibility of him getting some minutes this coming Saturday?

In an online fan poll conducted on a fanzine, the question of “who will score the goals that keep Fulham up?” was asked. Eddie Johnson was far and away the leader of the poll. I put no stock in the poll whatsoever. But it does concern me that so much pressure will be on the young man. With expectations so high, if he fails in any way, the torch that passed from Zat Knight to Chris Baird, could quickly move to EJ. Which is hardly fair, but such is life in the Premiership.

The appliance of science: Fulham fans show considerable bias in predicting the rest of the season

Sharing our predictions with the world.  Thanks to rjbiii for the points total research, which I couldn’t attribute there because it would’ve looked weird.  Anyway, have a look.

I think you were our 100,000th reader just before 10pm tonight.  Huzzah!

Thanks for reading, everyone.

Chris Coleman is the new Coventry manager and expects to be able to make the team good. Well fair enough - Coventry were a proper team when I was growing up and can be again - but it won’t happen overnight. I was going to say that we have a number of old Coleman stalwarts who might end up being sent to Coventry*, but really that’s not true. Lawrie Sanchez did quite a good job of clearing out the dead wood. He got a little carried away, but there’s only really Ian Pearce left who would be a) still capable of playing well in the Championship and b) a Coleman favourite. So expect him to head off some time soon. Perhaps.

Daniel Cousin is resigned to staying at Rangers. So be it.

Adrian Leijer on the official site. I love how they say ‘exclusive’ here. Which it is, of course, but… well, do we need it to be labeled as an exclusive to click through? Anyway, sounds like a good bloke.

Thoughtful preview of the game from KUMB, a West Ham site. He acknowledges that we weren’t very good at their place recently, but that we should be a bit better now. This is very reasonable. Also he mentions that West Ham will probably go 4-5-1 so we must be able to match them for numbers where it matters. It’s funny, I can never really get into doing previews - it seems to me that we can never really know what will happen - but here’s an example of how it can be done well.

So there we are. Not long now.

*read this, American friends

Looks like this

A large gallery of pictures from today’s training session.

From this we learn that Bullard, Dempsey, Johnson and Murphy are tights wearers.

Roy is making several meaningful pointy gestures.  That teacherly air again.

All looks like good fun though.  How jealous am I?  Paid a fortune to play football all week.  Can’t be bad can it?

No the news isn’t quick but this post will be.

Just a few bits of interest to Fulham fans. I guess you’d have to be living under a rock not to have heard this by now, but in case you are indeed living under a rock: Former Fulham star and club manager Chris Coleman has found a new home in the Championship League at Coventry City FC. Coventry are safe for now, 2 spots and 4 points above relegation.

Also, I’d seen this news a few days ago but George H. sent us an email with a link to a story that another former Fulham player is trying to find a new home as well. But this one is trying to find it in the U.S. Does the name Steve Marlet bring back any memories, bitter or not?

Yes, according to numerous sources including MLSNET.com, the former France international is in Bradenton Florida where he is trying out with the Chicago Fire and hopes to catch on. Being that I was not a Fulham follower back in 2000, I was shocked to see that Marlet had been signed by Fulham at that time for a transfer fee of £12 M. Yikes! Marlet scored 11 goals in 2 seasons and 54 games.

I have mixed feelings about this. If he does well in MLS, well then what does it say about MLS? But my feeling is he may get signed but I’m guessing he will be an average player as he has been in Europe. Most of the better players that have come from Europe, Mexico or S. America (I know, I mixed a country with two continents) have said that the level of play in MLS is much better than they had imagined.

I’ll try to stay on top of this one to see and report back to CCN.

Following on from yesterday’s ponderation into the merits of Airness shirts, it’s worth reminding everyone of the excellent Historical Football Kits site.  This has been on Chopper’s side bar for ages and I often have a browse.   Check out some of the old Coventry or Southend efforts if you want a bit of a giggle.   Anyway, here are the Fulham kits through the ages.

This certainly shows that the club has been very prepared to experiment in recent times, which is a plus overall, I think.  My only suggestion for the future is that we might want to revert to black socks at some point, I always quite like it when we have black socks on for some reason.

Anyway, perhaps there will be something to talk about tomorrow.  We shall up the ante as the game approaches.