Phuckerama: Derby 2-2 Fulham
Can’t start a fire, can’t start a fire without a spark…
We blew it. Derby have been awful all season and we couldn’t beat them. Our best players were Simon Davies, scampering around effectively on the right, Kasey Keller, who made some fine saves and did all he could to keep us in it, and that’s probably about it. Nobody else showed anything to suggest that they deserved to stay in the top division. On this of all days, they couldn’t rise above the conditions, the pitiful opponents. Heartbreaking stuff for those of us in the stands. Hodgson removed Bullard with ten minutes left, a move that brought boos from the crowd and visibly staggered the midfielder. Danny Murphy came on and did well, so perhaps it was the right thing to do, but it took balls and won’t help his standing in the eyes of many fans, for whom Bullard can do no wrong.
Derby scored first by accident. The ball ponged around following a Robbie Savage volley that went upwards rather than forwards. Andreasen and two Derby players converged, the ball came back our way, a shot, off a Derby player’s backside, and in.
Summed up our season.
We fought back. Davies drilled a cross into the heart of the Derby defence and Diomansy Kamara rose unchallenged to head home. 1-1. From there the teams mixed possession and gave their all, but there was little to choose between them and this is perhaps all we need to know. The 4-4-2 meant that the midfield never imposed itself with any consistency. There were flashes of excellence, particularly long passes from Bullard and Davies that cut open the Derby defence, but these were rare and Derby will feel that they earned their point.
It could have been worse. In the second half Savage was given the freedom of the penalty area, but could only shoot straight at Keller. It was a huge letoff. Bullard hit the bar with a free-kick, but Derby hit the bar too, and also narrowly missed when Robert Earnshaw shot wide of an empty net, albeit from a tricky angle. We didn’t particularly look like scoring, but with 12 minutes to go Kamara broke clear and smashed a left footed shot at Roy Carroll. The ‘keeper’s parry bounced to Hameur Bouazza, whose controlled half-volley flicked off Dean Leacock and dribbled into the net. Pandemonium in the stands, relief all over the players’ faces. Oh how they celebrated.
The crowd started up it’s “we’re winning away” chant.
“We’re winning away. We’re winning awaaay, how shit must..” Then it stopped.
Derby had scored straight away. A simple cross, a simple header. The end.
A couple of thoughts.
Derby’s first goal seemed lucky and I thought at the time that this pretty much summed up the season. But then when we scored our second goal there was some of that same wackiness about the whole play. A deflection in the end allowed the ball in the goal. So perhaps things do even out? I dunno?
Also, there could have been a penalty or two give on both ends. But really, when you watch Johnson get taken down in the box with just a few minutes left in the game and with the ref right on top of things, I asked, what it would take to get a penalty. Watching the replay it was clear, he was certainly chopped down. I don’t get it, but then again, in a nut shell that’s the season.
As to Bullard being taken off, the camera showed, he was not a happy camper, cursing RH out as he came off the field. A competitor that man is. Roy must have had his reasons. But according to the Telegraph, Jimmy Bullard had a phenomenal 98% Accuracy rate with 40 passes, one bad pass. 4 shots on goal, one of those off the crossbar. 33 forward zone passes and 2 key passes. I suspect Jimmy will be gone next season anyway, but if there were a deciding factor for him, I hope that moment doesn’t stick in his memory.
Fascinating stats Brian because I didn’t actually think Jimmy had that great a game yesterday. Proves once again that your gut feeling when you’re watching a match – and the statistical reality – can be poles apart. To be honest, with the exception of Keller and (possibly) Simon Davies, very few players can come away feeling pleased with their performances. Am really struggling with the player rankings, that’s for sure.
The stupid thing is the players performed terribly yesterday against the worst team in premierleague history, yet i wouldn’t bet against them beating sunderland next week or even gettin a point against liverpool, it seems these players can only raise their games when they are playing so called ‘bigger’ clubs. I don’t know, it’s baffling!
I agree, Rob, I thought Bullard was extremely ordinary. He wasn’t imposing himself at all, and Derby were running through our midfield like the bad old days of late 2007…
And that may very well be. While 40 total passes are more on the level of Davies, Murphy or Dempsey, (speaking of, what the hell has happened to Dempsey’s status), Bullard usually has games with 20 more passes than yesterdays game. So his passes were more accurate but he may have not been getting as many balls and I don’t know how many times he lost the ball on the dribble.
So one might ask themselves, did he not get as many passes because he wasn’t making himself available as much as he normally does?
It should have been absolutely heartbreaking to see their second goal going in but having suffered so many setbacks this season i did not feel as shocked as I should have felt. It must be like being in trenches for a long time in the war and being de-sentisied by the sheer voulume of horrible things going on. It was just so boringly predictable.
The fact is that this team is not good enough for the Premiership and to be honest if we go down I fear mid table mediocracy in the Championship. I actually think Roy has done a really good job in turning what was a pathetic team into one which is actually picking up points, we are just not picking up enough of them. I think he, Jimmy, Hangeland, Andreason, Davies, the keepers will leave and maybe even MAF, and then what? Sorry, i know its a negative post, its worst the day after for me.
On another note, not great to see so many fans getting into trouble, behind me were a group of 50 year blokes that were acting like children and inciting trouble, one of them fell on my 8 year old son during the goal, fortunately he wasnt hurt, dont understand why they cant have junior sections for away games. Sorry, digressing…
Pretty much confirms what I suspected. It might be mathmatically possible but we’re not good enough to win the games we need to stay up. I don’t want to accept that it’s over quite yet but I know deep down it’s over. :o(
Bruno, we saw the same. My sister and her boyfriend came with us and sat next to some 50 plus year old prick. The rage on the faces of some of these people, rage towards fellow fans, towards stewards, towards the police, towards the players. There was so much of it in the crowd yesterday, quite a nasty vibe. Then we left the ground and saw a big group of Fulham fans setting on a lone policeman. He got backup quickly, and they fought back with truncheons but for a moment there I worried for him. The fans’ faces were, to borrow the cliche, contorted with hate. That’s pretty big and hard isn’t it? Challenging one policeman. Nice.
Sorry to hear that Bruno. I saw plenty of examples of older fans p*ssed out of their heads and although i usually adopt pretty much a laissez faire attitude, found it annoying – if nothing else than because it meant they were incapable of supporting the team. As the second half began one guy in his 50s was so drunk he could barely climb the stairs, let alone focus on finding row H which he finally managed to ask about. Pretty pathetic state to get in really. We all like a few beers but come on…
It’s a shame to hear our fans acting in such a manner. It’s hard for me to know what our fans at matches are like since I’m across the pond, but in general, Fulham fans have a pretty good reputation, no?
I’d like to think we’ll bounce right back up to the premiership but realistically, I think it will take 3 to 5 years at least. We’ll have to recover from losing some of our best players to other premiership squads. Hopefully we won’t have to acclimate to a new manager as well, but we might. Plus, as has been stated in previous comments, there are some good squads in the Championship. It won’t be a cakewalk.
All in all, a miserable time to be a Fulham fan.