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.
What do you make of Hughes’ stats. Unless there’s a misprint it looks like he was largely a spectator.
From my viewpoint the defence performed heroically with excellent shape and discipline yet Hughes appears barely to have touched the ball or an opponent.
Comment by Tony Gilroy — August 24, 2008 @ 12:12 pm |
Good win for Fulham, I hope they can build on this win and aim for as high a finish as they can.
I thought Bullard played one of his best matches for a long time.
Comment by tippo — August 24, 2008 @ 12:35 pm |
WE were absolute shit
Comment by goonermichael — August 24, 2008 @ 12:40 pm |
Only saw MOTD version, but was more impressed with BZ than we have been led to expect – good Target man behaviour, hard work, layoffs, strength and willingness. When he scores a couple and gets more confident he could get quite a few.
Secondly the TEAM defending. Under pressure towards the end it was like a basketball defence – Arsenal were just passing around the outside and trying to draw a foul – they struggled to penetrate.
Overall happy a promising start.
Comment by Beardyoldgit — August 24, 2008 @ 1:59 pm |
Richie, I saw a couple plays yesterday that you often bemoaned us for lacking last year during your many serenades to George Boateng: Nasty tackles to stop plays.
One was key, Murphy trailing behind, I’m not even sure who… perhaps Song? Takes him down from behind about 10 yards from the box.
Teymourian had one after he mucked up play and made a massacre of the ensuing Arsenal run at goal.
Obviously, two of them gave up dangerous free kicks and were obvious yellow cards… but the way the plays were going, they were going to lead to even more dangerous shots on goal.
That’s a little bit of that bite in midfield.
There were constant other chippy tackles… nothing maliciously out to injure an opponent, but enough harm to disrupt things enough and keep Arsenal’s flow down.
Comment by El Steve — August 24, 2008 @ 2:55 pm |
Not Song… Eboue, I meant… I’m not even sure if it was him either.
Comment by El Steve — August 24, 2008 @ 2:57 pm |
Hughes (and Konchesky as well) typically don’t pile up very many tackles, clearances, etc. Both players do tend to make the most these opportunities though – Hughes had the highest percentage of tackles won and clearances that ended up with another Fulham player of all of our CBs last season. He’s not flashy, but he gets the job done when we need him. I think that describes his performance yesterday.
Tough to pick a MOTM for me. Hangeland, Bullard, and Murphy all would be solid picks, and I really liked what I saw from Zamora too. Really, everybody turned in a good performance overall.
Completely unrelated, but the commentators in the West Ham game just said that their retiring of #6 is only for this season, for the 50th anniversary of Bobby Moore’s debut.
Comment by Colin — August 24, 2008 @ 3:21 pm |
Pantsil is really starting impress me. His clearance numbers were higher than last weeks and his numbers in general are huge again this week, which speaks to his work rate.
I thought Murphy was MOM, reason being was I thoght he suddenly became a different player yesterday or was asked to play differently. His tackling and work rate, in the middle, in the first half set the tone for the team and I believe inspired the team to continue to work hard and believe they could win. I think ‘game attitude’ Murphy displayed really helped them at the end when they were under a lot of pressure. The defense, midfield, and forwards all worked hard and I believe Murphy had a hand in that with his inspired play.
Comment by RR — August 24, 2008 @ 3:32 pm |
A bit off topic, but I see Hameur Bouazza scored yesterday for Charletons 4-2 win over (this could be us) Reading.
Comment by bq — August 24, 2008 @ 4:24 pm |
I agree with Colin and Beardyoldgit, the main thing is the team defending. If a player can play within that team framework and keep clean sheets, then surely that’s the first and most important consideration. In that sense, Hughes’ contribution might be misleading by numbers alone, in that he couldn’t rationally be faulted for much at all.
Steve – absolutely, those fouls were very necessary, but we shouldn’t have got to that point, because again Arsenal were charging unimpeded through the middle of us. We got away with it, but it’s very much bend but not break isn’t it, when that’s happening?
Great stuff though, awesome effort from all the players.
Comment by weltmeisterclaude — August 24, 2008 @ 4:36 pm |
El Steve, I thought exactly the same thing. Those cynical tackles by Murphy and Andranik were exactly what no-one did to Giovanni last week. Obviously players are less willing to take a booking on 22 minutes than 85, so it’s not a perfect comparison, but nevertheless those hacks yesterday illustrated the increased ‘bite’ to our midfield. Roy bringing on Andranik on 75 minutes, bolstering that side of things, was a good move.
Having said that, I’m not yesterday’s performance and result completely puts to bed the issues we were all talking about last week. Murphy and Bullard did try to do more work defensively – and it paid off – but this was against Arsenal who, since the loss of Flamini, have a pretty lightweight midfield of their own. Many Premiership teams who are more beefy if less talented (Stoke come to mind), could still expose us. It was a great captain’s performance by Murphy, as others have said, but to me he still looked completely shagged after about 60 minutes. Part of me still wonders whether he would be better used coming off the bench to play killer passes against tiring defences.
Not meaning to pass over the many positives to take from yesterday’s game, of course. These are minor quibbles – it was a fabulous effort by all concerned and what a relief to be going into a long break with three points rather than nought.
Comment by JamieR — August 24, 2008 @ 4:51 pm |
Whoops, didn’t see your post Rich before posting mine.
Also second para should start: “Having said that, I’m not *convinced* yesterday’s…”
Comment by JamieR — August 24, 2008 @ 4:53 pm |
Absolute wonderful day, the 20 minutes of great play at the beginning of the Hull game turned into 70 and fingers crossed might turn into 90 vs Bolton. Its going to be very interesting seeing Johnstone adding speed and sharpness upfront. A great day rounded off by my son getting a lengthy birthday message from Diddy Hamilton at half time. He went bright red.
Comment by Bruno — August 24, 2008 @ 8:47 pm |
Hi Rich
I missed you on saturday selling your book,will you be selling it at the Bolton game? and if you are where will you be?
Comment by jeff — August 25, 2008 @ 5:40 am |
Hi Jeff
Sure. We’ll be on Stevenage Road somewhere! See you then!
Rich
Comment by weltmeisterclaude — August 25, 2008 @ 9:35 am |
As a first-time visitor to the Cottage – immigrant one-off(?) season-ticket holder – it was a great buzz to see the team beat Arsenal.
Very impressed by the general determination to keep possession – only overcome in this sense in the last twenty minutes as the obviously more athletic opposition began to impose through pure endurance.
Bullard was superb. Great touch, composure and excellent decision-making in were to squirt the pass to. Backed up in this sense by Murphy.
Agree with the positive mentions for Pantsil (gotta love him) and Zamora (though I wonder how much his strong performance is as much a negative for Gallas). Gera, I dunno. I accept the positives for his work-rate but he plays in a small area and doesn’t look like he will offer much going forward. Davies also looks past it.
All in and all, loved it, looking forward to the rest of the season; not all downhill from here, I hope!
Comment by delahug — August 25, 2008 @ 2:49 pm |
Far be it from me to criticize Roy tactically, of course, but I think that density chart highlights, again, the lack of left-footed (left-sided, even) players in our squad. Gera and Kallio both defended well and it turned out that the one goal was all we needed, but I still think it’ll wind up being an issue at some point.
Comment by Josh — August 25, 2008 @ 3:26 pm |
Delahug, I’m glad you enjoyed it, and don’t want to shout you down or anything, but to say that Davies looks past it is pretty odd from where I’m sitting. What’s the reasoning there? This man was clearly our player of the year last year and has picked up with some quietly effective performances this season. As for Gera, sure he hasn’t got going yet, but he could’ve had a hat trick against Hull, worked incredibly hard defensively on Saturday, and had a storming pre-season. Soooo…
Comment by weltmeisterclaude — August 25, 2008 @ 5:19 pm |
claude,
i’ll bow to your superior knowledge of fulham – it was after all my first time at the cottage on saturday.
just i remember davies as a more dynamic player at tottenham and thought he was the ‘weakest’ of the midfield on saturday. and gera, i dunno; i havent seen him much. maybe just that without a ball-carrier in either of the wide positions, there is obvious scope for improvement. players who can dribble the ball in that position, even just for the sake of it, are priceless imo. it allows the whole team to shift up the pitch. liverpool dont want pennant apparently; ‘we’ should buy him!
anyway, delighted to have found this forum. looking forward to the season.
Comment by delahug — August 25, 2008 @ 5:42 pm |
Neither of them are dribblers really, but that’s not really Roy’s game I don’t think. He seems to like a fairly compact four across the middle, and favours short, sharp passing moves and constant movement.
A classic example yesterday was when Seol got space down the left channel, spun and whipped a great early ball *right* where Zamora was running to. Cracking, lively football, and entirely indicative of “Roy’s way”.
As the season goes on you’ll almost certainly start to appreciate what Simon Davies brings. That sounds patronising perhaps, but he was our best player by such a distance last year that I’m sure you’ll warm to him soon. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that he was responsible for almost everything good that happened last season!
Gera seems likely to drift inside a lot and has an eye for creating and scoring. Again, it’s not going to be whizzing down the line, but short, clever passing. Gera, seems to be cut from the same cloth as Bullard, Murphy and Davies, so it’s not hard to see what Roy saw in him.
The other thing to bear in mind is that dribbling is a very individual skill, and some of the books I’ve been reading talk about how this is to be almost a last resort in attacking play. We know how Roy has rehearsed attacking moves with the team, over and over, so I don’t know that there’s much scope for dribbling within that framework. Certainly only Diomansy Kamara would appear to be a proper ‘runner’, and he’s out for a long time anyway.
I doubt you’ll see Pennant here, for the above reasons, and also because Roy seems to place great emphasis on character. He’s spoken about the players being ambassadors for the club and for the game, and Pennant probably falls short of Roy’s ideals in that sense.
Sorry, bit of a ramble!
Comment by weltmeisterclaude — August 25, 2008 @ 5:55 pm |
Agree with nearly everybody about almost everything!
But really just wanted to say how nice it was to see you again, Rich, and Hade and Chopper for the first time.
Keep up the good work!
Comment by Wing Half — August 25, 2008 @ 7:53 pm |