Bullard England call-up

How about that?

To go from a career-threatening injury to the England squad in two years is pretty impressive.  Well done, Jimmy.  Your hard work has paid off.

The future of sportswriting

The excellent USS Mariner has a post on the future of sportswriting.

Blogs have been important in the States for some time, particularly baseball blogs which have the advantage of daily games and quantifiable happenings.  But they’re gathering momentum here too.  Have a read.

Tough times, but Roy will see us through

Looking at Match of the Day last night it occurred to me that while Fulham almost certainly have improved, the same might be said for almost every other club.

Look at the league table and you see the Hull/West Brom/Stoke trio of doom scattered up and down, and surely these three will be in the mix for relegation come May. But who else? Everton are in a mess, but will sort things out, Sunderland have made some very good purchases, Man City should be fine, Wigan look genuinely able (why aren’t more teams raiding that stunning Egyptian side?), Newcastle will be fine, and Middlesbrough look effervescent and exciting. West Ham aren’t a good side but again, ought to find enough wins here and there.

Which really leaves us with Bolton and Blackburn. The latter have started quite well and aren’t really in the bookies’ minds, while Bolton could do anything. It’s a pickle isn’t it? I still think the 16th place discussed earlier in the year is realistic, but when you look at the league afresh it does look stronger than ever.

I say stronger, but do I mean that? Amy Lawrence’s Guardian column today has a fascinating quote from Andriy Shevchenko:

Italian football is about finishing and logic, like chess, and the English game is based on speed and instinct.

Tellingly, Lawrence adds “very few people play chess well at speed”.

Later in the newspaper Shevchenko is quoted again:

When I was at Chelsea what missed most was the organisation, the preparation, the atmospher of this club [Milan], lots of little things that are nevertheless important.

These differences between the Italian way and the English way are presumably quite stark (and I’d again recommend Gianluca Vialli’s book on the subject). One would assume that with equal spending power the Italian way would trump the English way – why wouldn’t a more thoughtful approach and good preparation beat a haphazard approach with mixed preparation? – but this might not be correct, and might undersell the work done behind the scenes by English coaches.

Nevertheless, it looks like Roy’s trying to build a team that combines the two approaches.  Which ought to be a good thing.

Oh look: Dickson Etuhu

He might be good; he might not. We will have to wait and see.

And if anyone mentions a Sunderland supporting third cousin…

UPDATE:  It’s official.  Welcome, Dickson.  Whether you’re great or rubbish I’m sure I’ll find something to like.

Some stuff

Two transfers: Moritz Volz has gone on loan to Ipswich; Luis Saha has transferred to Everton.

The first first: Volz, I’m sure, will like it at Ipswich. And Ipswich will like Volz. They have a thriving youth setup, and do give youngsters a chance in the first team. So having someone like Volzy around will really be good for the team, which has talent and tries to play a good passing game. Manager Jim Magilton was a good footballer and seems to be on his way towards being a good manager. It’s a proper club too: there is a popular anecdote about the former owners, the Cobbold family, whose idea of a crisis was said to be when the boardroom ran out of wine.

Here’s a good overview of them, which I really recommend having a read of:

“they were countrymen and alcoholics who loved football in a way that has gone out of fashion, certainly at the higher level of the game: they thought it fun. They knew how to lose and, by favourable comparison with many of their current counterparts, were no fools. Early in [Bobby] Robson’s period as manager, the supporters were restless. The Cobbold response was typical. Robson was given a 10-year contract, which enabled him to build the team that eventually brought the UEFA Cup to Suffolk.”

Ipswich retained some of the throwback spirit until reasonably recently. I did some work there in 2001, and interviewed the Club Secretary (who’d been there for 40 years or so), the Chairman (who didn’t seem to like me at all), the manager (George Burley, who was very personable but didn’t make eye contact), and captain Matt Holland (who was every bit as nice as you’d expect). We had approached a number of clubs to take part in the project (on behalf of the FA), but none were so helpful as Ipswich and none gave us access to their ‘top men’ like this. Volz has made a good choice.

Saha… interesting, eh? We’ve bought a forward from Everton, Everton have replaced it with our old forward. The knock on Saha is that he’s injury prone. Johnson? Well perhaps there are varying degrees of injury proneness. I’m not sure he’s what Everton need, although it has been said that they’re so short of bodies that desperation is setting in. So in that sense, Saha should work well for them. I guess the important thing is that the Saha of now is not the Saha we sold, so any sense of missed opportunity has to be tempered by that thought.

Finally, below is something I read last night by Gary Snyder. This is a football site and poetry is probably “a bad thing” in that regard, but hey, why not? Somehow seems appropriate at the moment. Have a good weekend.

Goals

No great insights here, but I thought it worth highlighting what happened defensively again last night.

Here’s the first Leicester goal: Kallio, who’s impressed me somewhat, isn’t the quickest, and here he got burned down the wing. I can’t remember the build up to this so it mightn’t have been his fault, but here we can see him chasing after a winger.

In frame 2 we see him not getting to said winger.

Frame 3 is where Frederik Stoor’s involvement is highlighted. That’s him at the far post. The cross got all the way to him, and sadly he diverted it back into the middle of the pitch to the edge of the six yard box, from where Dickov pounced. I thought Stoor did pretty well last night, but that was a mistake.

Moments later we conceded again. Not in these highlights, but I’m sure that Hangeland had been dispossessed on the far side of the box just before this incident. So mistake #1. In frame 1 we then see a Leicester player charge into two white shirts.

In frame 2 we see the ball emerge from this little conflict.

In frame 3 we gasp astounded as, despite having many men back, there’s nobody around to stop a clear shot, which promptly whizzes past Mark Schwarzer.

Back to my point earlier today: I don’t know how you avoid it, but look how deep our defence is for both goals. If you’re fighting for the ball in your own box you’re in deep trouble. The further up the pitch the ball’s being fought for the less danger, and the shorter the distance you have to travel with the ball to attack. I’m not wise enough to know how we might have avoided being so deep, but it strikes me as being an issue not unconnected with the absence of a tackler in the middle of the park. If we don’t win the ball in the midfield (and generally we don’t) we have to win it further back. And if we don’t win it tidily further back we get problems.

Not a new observation, but it’s been an issue in all three competitive games this year, and you wonder which side of this fine line we’ll end up on. It’s a dangerous game and I can see it making life quite hard for us this year.

But to end on a high note, here’s Bullard’s fantastic goal.

The instantaneousness of Davies’ play makes me think this was a practised move. Certainly this sort of ‘rebound’ pass is all over the coaching books I’ve been reading, as are many other “Roy” type ideas. But yeah, nicely worked. We see Bullard about to launch a long range drive, then instead dropping the ball through to Davies, who doesn’t hesitate before touching it on to Bullard, who hits it first time into the net. His first Fulham goal from open play. Great football.

Fulham 3-2 Leicester

Proper report tomorrow, just in the door.

All too easy for a while, 1-0 up from a soft goal (Gera), passing crisply, quickly, strolling.

Leicester fired up for the second half, we defended far too deep so did most of our defending inside the penalty box, which is ridiculous. Leicester scored twice.

Our passing went long, our movement stopped, everyone (especially Sir Jimmy) started to force things, bad passes everywhere, lost initiative completely.

Nevland came on and had a good goal disallowed, presumably for offside. Bullard continued to have a nightmare. Then – and this is just typical isn’t it? – he got the ball 35 yards out, faked to shoot, cut inside, played a one-two, and rifled a shot into the bottom corner from the edge of the D.

From the same place Murphy scored another as time ran out.

Phew.

Quick ratings: Schwarzer good, Stoor v good to begin with, faded, Hangeland and Hughes alright, Kallio alright, midfield completely lost it in the second half, I liked what Gera was trying to do, Davies couldn’t get involved, Murphy and Bullard again lost control of the game, Zamora willing and capable, Seol was really not there tonight, sub Nevland did well.

———————

Bit more:

Listening to Elliott Smith conjures up a 5am feeling.  His music evokes the sun coming up on a deserted city, when haven’t been to bed yet, you’re knackered but happy and maybe sad too, and everything’s somehow moving slowly and gently but it’s all good and soon you’ll have a nice long sleep and wake up halfway through the day and for a long time you’ll remember that pre-dawn feeling, not fondly, particularly, but just as something to think back on.

Which is how these strange league cup games seem to me.  A ground not even half full, people sitting in seats with spaces all around them, the late summer sky day gradually giving way to night, the match is important but not important, and it’s all a bit otherworldly.   Last night we had top seats in the Riverside, padded seats at that, and had a nice leisurely evening taking in what was, on balance, a pretty entertaining game.

Fulham passed around gently in the first half.  Leicester showed some strength, particularly down the left flank where a nippy winger gave debutant Stoor plenty to think about.  Stoor handled all this quite well, but we weren’t penetrating at the other end and it looked like a fairly empty game lay ahead.  Then Zoltan Gera scored, a strange goal that even now I can’t conjure up in my mind.  There seemed to be something faintly fortunate about it, but I can’t recall exactly how.  This done, the impression that we were having an evening stroll was confirmed, and the half wound down with little of interest to declare.

Leicester put the cat amongst the pigeons in the second half, twice attacking deep into the Fulham box, twice scoring goals.  Somehow the team needs to stop this happening.  There’s no pace in the back four, but a higher line was a must.  How we got so pegged back is a mystery, but again, narrowed eyes will be scrutinising our four midfielders, who all contribute to the team, but lack any sort of defensive presence.  When they hunt in packs and pressure high up the pitch they can do the job, but last night they got stretched all over the place and even League One Leicester were able to boss the midfield for stretches.

It didn’t help that our supposedly gifted midfield passed like a non league side in the second half.  Gera had a fair game, but Simon Davies could not get involved, Murphy had one of those strange matches where he’s everywhere but nowhere, and Bullard seemed to have decided to be David Beckham circa 2002, running wherever he wanted, playing ridiculous (and inaccurate) passes that undermined the team’s quick and short passing ethos, and ginving the ball back to Leicester time and again.  You can’t attack without the ball, and if you can’t defend very well without the ball you need to keep the thing as long as you can.  Bullard was having a nightmare.

Which presents Roy Hodgson with a huge dilemman, as for all his flaws, Bullard – like Beckham – is a player with a sense of occasion, and he scored when we needed something to happen.  His goal was beautifully taken, a nice one two on the edge of the box and a screaming finish into the bottom corner.  When Murphy added another on 90 minutes we cheered in bemused excitement, the win having been well and truly stolen from an unfortunate and lively Leicester side.   Cracks papered over for now.

Wednesday

Couple of good links on the Guardian site today:

David Conn with a terrific look at the Man City situation. I’d heard the rumours, but hadn’t realised what a potential mess they’re in. It sounds as if a lot of the incoming transfers haven’t been paid for (initial payments only), and that Thaksin’s money is no longer available, so the team’s in a spot of bother. No great surprise, and in some ways it’s tempting to gloat at the fools blindly chasing money, but a) don’t we all do that and b) this could probably have happened to any club. Sad for the game, very sad for City fans.

The other thing that interests me today is the quiet implosion of West Ham Utd. If ever a team was looking like a ’shock’ relegation candidate it’s West Ham. Yes they have some good players but as the league moves on you need to keep getting better. West Ham are getting worse. They lined up:

Green; Behrami, Davenport, Upson, Neill; Faubert, Parker, Noble, Etherington; Cole, Ashton

against Wigan. There are some good players there, particularly up the middle, but still that’s a team in danger, especially if it keeps on selling. On early form they’ll miss Zamora and Paintsil.

Back later with Cup tie reaction.

After all

the weekend’s excitement I am at a loss for words today.

Never mind though, it’s Leicester at home tomorrow night, and I’ve got tickets on the halfway line, in the Riverside Stand. Best seats in the house, as far as prices are concerned, except they’re only £15 a go because it’s the Coca Cola Cup. Bonus. I’d still rather sit in my own seat in JH, but what can you do?

Anyway, should be quite good fun, and I’d expect a strong side to play given the time off afterwards. Speaking of which, it wouldn’t actually be that bad a time to play Man Utd now, would it? We’ve just beaten Arsenal, United are struggling to find their gears, I would half fancy us to get a point. Oh well.

Meanwhile, Colin’s got some defensive work up and here’s Chopper’s excellent report from Saturday.

A news round, then:

Kagiso Dikgacoi says that he’s on the verge of a move to Fulham.

“My mind was focused to the start of the League season with Golden Arrows, but God has decided otherwise and wanted to give me this chance of playing in England.  My manager has told me that I am not going for trials, but for medical tests and if I pass I will be playing for Fulham this season.”

Setanta copies and pastes a story from the Official site.

“I love Fulham Football Club and I want to stay here and play for Fulham.”

Leicester will be at “near full strength” for the cup match.  Gulp.  Shame Joe Mattock’s out, he’s supposed to be a bit special.

Southend Reserves beat an unknown Fulham side 4-2 today, “behind closed doors”.  That phrase always makes me laugh for some reason.

Clubcall has some Hangeland quotes:

“I feel that we didn’t perform well at Hull. We repaired that in a way against Arsenal and it was a big three points but really it is all about consistency.

“We face a cup tie now and it is no good getting carried away. After that we are not playing for nearly three weeks because it was supposed to be Manchester United this weekend but they are in the European Super Cup on Friday in Monaco.

“And we don’t want to sit it out all that time thinking our last performance was a poor one against a team from a lower division.”

We’ve signed Dutch U17 “starlet” Danny Hoesen.

Looks like the Volz to Ipswich deal is almost done, but now as a loan.  I think he’ll like Ipswich, a Fulham like club and surprisingly reachable from London.

I’ll try to get to the ground early with some Reviews tomorrow, so say hello if you’re about.

I’ve just noticed this

How good is this?

I urge you to click on the link. Not sure whether I’m allowed to show the picture here, but what a picture!

Hatter Don on the Fulham Review

Thanks, Don:  a really nice overview of this year’s Fulham Review on the esteemed FulhamUSA site.

Good man, Don, thanks very much.

If you haven’t got the book yet, please do so!  Everyone seems to like it.  You can order online at www.godsfoot.com, or we’ll be at the games selling on Stevenage Road.   We only have about 60 copies left, which’ll sell out soon enough.  Then I have to decide between the nice feeling of having sold out (rarity!), or doing another print run.   Anyway, thanks again, Don, and another thanks to everyone else who has helped with the book.  Next year’s is going to be better again, I think.

The end of Andreasen?

After all this fun with photographs, numbers, and John Paintsil, here’s some news:

ANDREASEN TO QUIT FULHAM screams the News of The World.

He wasn’t in the squad on Saturday (and Robert Milsom was) so it did seem as though perhaps something was amiss.  Now this.  While it’s true that there’s competition for places, there’s not that much competition.  If you assume that one of the main midfielders will more than likely get injured/lose form/be surprisingly sold in the next few weeks then everything changes.   Especially if you’re one of only two proper ‘defensive’ midfielders, as Andreasen is.

Unless there’s something in the pipeline and we’re about to sign someone else to play in that role.  Things never stand still here do they?  Minor bummer anyway, I like Andreasen.

Practice, determination, and Seol

Nothing too dramatic to report here, but this goal was clearly a well rehearsed move.

You can see in the first four frames that we’ve got very little movement other than Hangeland running in, Kallio on the near post moving away from the action (and taking two Arsenal men with him?), and our friend Seol making a royal nuisance of himself in front of the goalkeeper and defender.

All three movements were coordinated:  the ball was over the near post area, but Kallio clearing out that area would’ve helped had the cross been lower, and Hangeland’s run was timed perfectly.  But look at frames 5 and 6, the two behind the goal shots: Seol wrestles the much smaller Denilson (bad assignment by Wenger?), until by the time Hangeland arrives, Denilson is in a right tangle and completely unable to deal with a ball that’s coming right at him.

It all looked so simple in real time, but that’s where the practice comes in, I suppose.  Credit Bullard for the cross, and Hangeland for the finish (presumably this was meant to be a header, so well done him for volleying a difficult cross), but also Seol for extreme nuisance value.

Some more Fulham v Arsenal things

Few bits from yesterday:

Here’s the density chart. If there’s something I’m noticing with these, it’s that we tend to do well when our players are close together. They were close yesterday: look at Kallio and Gera, who doubled up together all game; Murphy and Bullard hunted together when we didn’t have the ball, and played close when we did, which meant both had options. They didn’t pass to one another too much, but having the option is a good thing. In the event, Bullard and Paintsil passed between one another 32 times, which is a very high number for these things. Seol and Zamora also played very close together, which showed in their link play. Finally, look how tucked in Chris Baird was for that 20 minute onslaught. He did well.

Which brings me to another point. All week TiFF has been falling over itself in rage. But we have now beaten Arsenal with Seol up front, and a Kallio/Baird tag team at left back, Aaron Hughes at centre-back, and Danny Murphy holding in midfield. All this while the king of hearts, Erik Nevland, looked on from the sidelines. Does this not, once and for all, show that the minutiae of our team selections are not always that important?

We fans have time on our hands and thoughts that we absolutely must share, but there is a huge tendency to over think these things. “Baird isn’t quick enough, Paintsil is positionally suspect, Hughes can’t header, Murphy tires, Seol doesn’t care, we’ll get relegated without a left winger, etc, etc, etc” All of which may be true (I don’t think so, but I don’t know much), but we’re making judgements that sound right, but that just might not be as relevant as a player’s ability to come into a team and play as part of that team and to the manager’s (apparantly very specific) instructions. Which all of the above players did, and did very well.

We are realistically hoping to win 12-15 games this year. That means there will be many occasions where we do not win, and where we would not expect to win. Yesterday’s result reminded us that Roy knows what he’s doing, that he’s got his team playing properly: sometimes it won’t work; often enough it will.

On with the show.

Here are the numbers. I left yesteday with a sense that Zoltan Gera had had a stormer defensively, and sure enough, he and Murphy had five tackles each, which is a high number, particularly for two flair players. Well done them. As we saw above, Gera and Kallio were terrific at working together, and both deserve big credit for that.

Our man John Paintsil again stands out with his imprint on the game. Again, lots of passes, lots of clearances, lots of character. He did give the ball away a bit, but the pluses more than outweigh the minuses. Massive performance from him.

Next, look at Jimmy Bullard! Really imposed himself on things, but in the way Roy would want him to. We saw the ball hungry Bullard yesterday, but in a good way. He didn’t go on too many mad surges, was always back defending, and had a cracking game all told. Which was great to see. He pushed Hangeland for my man of the match, I think.  [NB - most of these passing numbers are better than they were at Hull, which is telling, I suspect.]

A mention for Mark Schwarzer, who is a class act in goal and who may very well be our best signing for some time. Time will tell, but he’s seriously good, and has that magic presence that you need.

Finally, thanks to Jamie, Chopper and Toby for helping sell the Reviews. Can’t really say how hugely appreciated this is, brilliant stuff, lads, thank you.

Fulham 1-0 Arsenal

“I only mention it because sometimes there’s a man… I won’t say a hero, ’cause, what’s a hero? Sometimes, there’s a man.”

This is John Paintsil’s world. The rest of us must just sit back, clap, admire and enjoy. Today John and his teammates beat Arsenal, and it was thrilling.

If the team had underwhelmed at Hull then today they showed evidence of having worked hard to put things right. The midfield – routinely derided during the week for lacking steel – battled and battled away, tapping ankles, sliding into tackles, and swarming around Arsenal’s technically gifted players all afternoon. It knocked the visitors out of their stride, and despite immense pressure late on, this Fulham team was not going to be broken.

We had an early, delicious lead. Bobby Zamora’s signing surprised a few people, but today his play was sensational. There was more than a little of McBride in the way he worked, always willing, technically sound, linking nicely. His clever spin won us an early corner; Bullard short, Murphy traps, Bullard fires, Hangeland scores! The big defender hinted at goals last season; today he crashed through the six yard box like an All-Black near the try line, burying his chance decisively. It was a deserved goal.

From there we gave as good as we got. Seol showed that Roy’s faith in him is not blind by foraging away as Zamora’s partner, and while they were not always dangerous their effort and approach were first class. Behind them Zoltan Gera, still finding his feet going forwards, put in a terrific stint defensively, and new boy Tony Kallio will have appreciated the help. Inside, Murphy crunched into tackles and passed intelligently, and we saw Jimmy Bullard’s best performance for some time, a heady mixture of chaotic charges and clever passing. Simon Davies did as Simon Davies does.

The defence was equally effective. While Kallio looked sound, Brede Hangeland was magnificent, and Aaron Hughes put in a quietly excellent performance. But it was John Paintsil who sticks in the mind. Again the Ghana defender got forward whenever he could, and used the ball well, but his defensive work is underestimated. He tackled, headed, and, impressively, ordered people around to ensure positional correctness. His exuberent display was a telling sequel to last week’s efforts, and he’s a huge fan favourite already.

Arsenal came at us – we knew they would – but the team held on. Robin van Persie had three or four free-kicks but wasted them all; Mark Schwarzer did everything he had to do, but in truth Arsenal were more bark than bite, and for that the Fulham defensive efforts must be applauded. We created less and less as the game wore on: Davies chipped wide after a nice build up, Dempsey misplayed a good counter opportunity, but the game is all about scoring more than your opponent, and this we did. Fantastic stuff.

John’s lap of honour

John waves to his subjects

John surges in the first half

And then there were none

Did you ever read Agatha Christie?  I did:  Dad had all the books and as I grew up I think I must’ve read most of them.  Poirot always appealed more than Miss Marple, for some reason.

One of her books was called “And then there were none”, which, as best I recall, was set on an island, and ten guests meet at a house and one by one they’re all murdered, until there are only two left and both think the murderer is each other, and so on and so on.   Good stuff.   You can’t beat a bit of detective fiction.

Anyway, all of this is a long way of saying that Eddie Johnson’s gone out on loan.

Which leaves:

Schwarzer, Stockdale, Zuberbuhler, Niemi

Stoor, Paintsil (how shall we spell it?), Kallio, Hughes, Konchesky, Hangeland, Baird, Leijer, Volz

Andranik, Andreasen, Dempsey, Murphy, Gera, Davies, Bullard, Smertin

Seol, Nevland, an injured Kamara, Zamora, Andy Johnson, and club servant Collins John

If you subtract Niemi (seems marginalised), Volz (shopped around), Smertin (peripheral) and John (unfulfilled genius) then you don’t have too much, do you?  And while we have better players, it’s not a side that’s going to frighten anyone.  Crystal Palace went down with Andy Johnson, so he’s no guarantee of anything.  Our goalkeeper is properly good, our defence is improving, and our midfield is nifty, but it’s quite easy to have a half empty glass isn’t it?

Which is exactly what I have.  Dinner’s on, and I must deal with it.

We’ll be outside the ground with boxes of books tomorrow.  Should see myself, Hade, Jamie, Chopper, Toby and Matthew round and about, so say hello.  We’ll be in the Crabtree beforehand, also selling books.

COYW, etc.

Everybody’s got one

I’ve done a news post today (and as Chopper points out, David Healy’s gone now too), so here’s something you weren’t expecting.

Exhibit A

What is it? Well, let me explain. On Julianahatfield.com is a messageboard. It’s like the Fulham boards except about music, and you don’t get nearly as many posts because there’s less to talk about. I sometimes go there for news of tours, albums, etc.

Anyway, today someone put up a poll. There’s a new album out, and, for whatever reason, this person wanted to know what everyone’s favourite songs off it are. I’m not sure where you can go with that information, but that’s what they asked. So a number (106) people filled it in. And the results are above.

Here you have 10 songs, and all of them get at least four votes. None get more than 21 votes. These votes have all come from people who have listened to the new album several times, over and over. So they’re all listening to the same thing before voting.

Perhaps you know where I’m going with this.

In football we seem to spend a lot of time arguing about the merits of players. Recently it’s been pretty incredible. Everyone has an opinion, everyone seems to think they are right. It’s quite weird and sometimes you lose the will to visit the message boards. But still you return, knowing full well that the latest nugget could be just around the corner, and you really don’t want to miss that.

But these arguments are largely based on someone seeing a player, having an opinion, and someone else disagreeing. Everyone’s watched the same player, but still people disagree. My view in all these is that nobody’s got any business being as certain as they are, but why trust me? I see good in all the players, even the bad ones. I like to think that by knowing my limitations I am somehow operating on a higher evaluative plateau, but knowing you’re usually wrong is not really much more useful than not knowing you’re usually wrong in the final analysis, is it?

Perhaps none of this really matters. If 106 Juliana Hatfield fanatics can all take an album, an album they all love, and judge its contents differently, well maybe we’re all the same with football. Maybe we all have our own taste in footballers, and we want to see more of that sort of player, regardless of how good that player actually is. Me, I like players with something to prove, players who get booed, players who aren’t quite established. I’ll cheer on Andy Johnson because he cost a lot of money, and that’s his vulnerability, but there needs to be something to latch onto.

I like Mark Schwarzer because he chose to take a new direction with his football and move from a club where he could happily have stayed. That took guts but also showed an inclination to experiment perhaps. It also, one way or another, said “I like Fulham”, which is a boon for us because he’s pretty good.

I like John Paintsil because he thrilled Jamie and everyone else up at Hull, because he’s the nearest thing to Josimar we’ll ever see in a Fulham shirt, and because he seems to have something about him. He’s also, apparantly, prone to random acts of terribleness, which also endears him to me.

Paul Konchesky has shaved his hair off. I don’t know why, but he’s a quietly effective left back who gets on with doing a good job. I like that.

I like Aaron Hughes because he’s never been booked, which probably means he’s a good, unassuming, quiet lad. Nice one.

Brede Hangeland is probably the player I’d have been if I’d had about 400 times as much talent. Also he has read Don DeLillo. Which is impressive. He reads at all! Bonus. Good man.

Simon Davies is another quietly effective, unassuming footballer. Great asset to the side, seems to be a nice man.

I’m not so sure about Jimmy Bullard. Where’s the vulnerability? He’s very sure of himself. The crowd overrate him. It makes him harder for me to warm to. But he’s an all-action hero and gives everything and his enthusiam’s infectious, so I love him anyway.

Danny Murphy had his doubters, but I loved his hunched over style, his articulate manner, his receding hairline, his tidy passing, his lack of pace, his WINNING GOAL AT PORTSMOUTH.

Zoltan Gera has the best name in football.

Bobby Zamora scored goals all over the place in Brighton. I hear he’s a good solid squad member, and I want him to do well to prove the doubters wrong, to show that the good years were what his real talent is, not the bad ones.

I like Seol because everyone’s so negative towards him. He doesn’t have the body language of your typical British Bulldog, but why would he have? I don’t believe for a minute that he doesn’t try, I just think that he perhaps finds it hard to get into some games. It happens. There’s ability there, as we’ve seen. He’s set up or scored all of our last three goals. Now, I don’t think he’s a great player, or a particularly good one, but there’s enough there for me to want him to do well.

And so on. I haven’t even got to Andreasen and Dempsey, my favourite Fulham players. There’s no need. Maybe this is just the issue. We all watch football like we all listen to music. We can see the same thing in different ways, and just as there’s no right or wrong in music (well there is, as I’ve tried to tell countless Coldplay fans down the years: IT’S VERY BAD, I say), then opinions of footballers will differ. And maybe not for rational reasons.

So next time someone (everyone) has a go at Seol I’ll just try not to worry. Four people like “Now I’m Gone” off the new Juliana Hatfield album. I can’t see how they can say that – it’s pure filler – but there we are. And incidentally, Hatfield has selected “This Lonely Love” as her comeback single, which is surely the same thing as Roy selecting Seol up front in the first place, if fan choice is considered.

Whatever. It is all about opinions, but they don’t have to be good ones, and they might not be based on anything worthwhile. I just wish we could be a bit more positive towards our team sometimes…

Steve Davis signs for Rangers

Well there we are. Could have been a good player for us, but it didn’t work out. As many have said, the Sanchez style didn’t entirely suit him, and neither did being one half of a very lightweight central midfield duo. No matter, all done now. Incidentally, I wonder why Rangers don’t want Chris Baird? The NI thing, plus Baird’s value being presumably lower than it ought to be, Rangers recently losing Cuellar; I’d have thought he might be a good signing for them.

David Healy is supposedly having a medical at Sunderland, and someone mentioned Cardiff Eddie Johnson going on a season long loan at Cardiff, which would be very useful to him.

I’m half worried that the level might still be too high, that a League 1 spell might give him a chance to really find his groove, but I guess the Championship would toughen him up on the field. Against that, I’d worry that it’d all be a bit much, and that he mightn’t look so good in that league either. Not because he hasn’t got the talent, it’d just be a question of styles and adaptation. We shall see.

Volz to Ipswich still rumoured, although again, someone on TiFF suggested that this may be hitting snags. We’d accepted the bid (£500k) so it ought to happen, but who knows?

Balls: Sunderland sign Djibril Cisse

Oh no!

Cisse’s one of my favourite players. He’s the archetypal lone striker, fast, strong, capable of all sorts of things. Fun to watch too, which is the icing on the cake. He and Kenwyne Jones (when he’s fit) will be a right handful. I wish we could have signed him.

Also, a couple of good bits from 200 percent.   On the England mess and on our game last week.   As ever, great stuff.

John Paintsil and the power of numbers

One of the nice things about the modern world is that there’s all sorts of information available. I know that many people find this off-putting, and I can see that, but it does make it easier to understand things.

Take football. It’s a complicated game and we’ll never really get to the bottom of it. But we can get a lot of hints. So when someone on TiFF says “John Paintsil didn’t make any tackles against Hull”, it’s very easy to put your smart Alec hat on and prove that person wrong.

Which is what we have here. Look at the numbers above. I got them from the excellent Telegraph football page. They don’t make it easy to get the numbers, but they’re there if you’re prepared to faff around looking for them. Anyway, look at our friend John Paintsil. There’s a man who’s involved.

The most striking number is forward passes. This is something that I know proper football analysts pay attention to, the thinking being that anyone can pass backwards or sideways, but if you keep passing forwards (to a teammate!) then you’re making good things happen. John Paintsil played 41 forward passes against Hull. He only had 50 passes overall. I say only – that’s more than anyone else – but it’s staggering to me how often he got the ball and passed it forwards. Funnily enough, Simon Davies was similarly forward thinking, passing forwards on 27 of 32 passes. None of which means much, but it is suggestive of good things.

John’s performance going forwards was very effective then. But he also did his share of the heavy lifting at the back. Hangeland had more clearances, but Paintsil had the most recoveries (interceptions, do you think?) and also tackles (although Simon Davies had more).

Again, this is not the be all and end all, far from it, but I do think it’s interesting. Colin’s well on his way to taking things to the next level on this, incidentally – keep checking Championship at Best for updates.