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.