The week that doesn’t end; Niemi retires

The real world is rubbish.  In the last two weeks I’ve been offered a new job, accepted it, had people try to change my mind, lost sleep, gained germs, got up early to get through all my work, stayed late to get through my work, then on Friday, at about 4pm, I finished the presentation, sent it to my client, and smiled.   At 430 she sent me some more data to analyse.  “Could you combine it please?” I asked.  “It takes a long time?” she replied, with a George Saunders style question mark.  I took a metaphorical step back.   “Hang on:  when do you want me to incorporate all this into the presentation that I’ve already massively overdelivered on?” – “Monday still” – “er… shall we wait until later in the week and do it properly?” – “no, has to be monday” – “but it’s 5pm on a Friday now” – “well you can’t just move a board meeting can you?” – “no…” – “so monday please”

So my weekend will be spent in the company of my friends Excel and PowerPoint.

I thought I’d explain why I haven’t written anything for a bit.

That and nothing much has happened.

Antti Niemi retired.   That’s sad, but he’s probably happy with what he achieved in the game.   I found last season quite fascinating, watching Warner, Niemi and Keller in action.  Warner was all action, rushing out to deny Arsenal, flying all over the place; Niemi made lost of miraculous stops too;  Keller never really seemed to move.  But it was Keller who solidified the defence, Keller who didn’t concede, and Keller who Roy entrusted with the run-in.   It was a little bit harsh on Niemi, but Hodgson had spotted what had become more noticeable to the fans over time: that Niemi had lost “something”.   He still made some miraculous saves, but goals still went in too.   We’ve already seen Mark Schwarzer stamp his authority on the penalty area, and Antti didn’t really do that.   But he did do a lot of things well, and let’s face it, who can’t picture him flying, twisting, tipping the ball over?

In an interview on the official site he singled out an away game at Portsmouth as one of his best, and I agree with that.  We were there that day, and sat very close to the goal.  Niemi made some staggering saves that day.  I was doing the Observer fan thing and had no hesitation in giving him 10/10.   He also performed heroics in the 0-0 game at home to Derby, preventing what would have been an extremely embarrassing defeat.  The other game I remember, which he didn’t mention, was Middlesbrough away in Sanchez’s first few games.  We’d survived at home to Liverpool, but, not having expecting this, a lot of Fulham fans had already booked up to go to Boro.  Anyway, we were safe, so Sanchez told the players to relax and show him what they could do.  What they could do was get battered.   Lee Dong Gook tore through our defence as if it wasn’t there, Mark Viduka (as usual) had a field day, and Boro had 21 shots (according to ESPN, who record these things).   Luckily for us many of these shots blazed improbably wide, but (again according to ESPN), eight of them were saved by Niemi.  Now, as is usually the case with these things, at the time it seemed nearer to 80.   He was in great form that day.

We’ll never quite be sure how good he was.  For one thing he played behind some quite bad defences (it was nice of him to single out Ian Pearce, who I maintain is one of the more underrated Fulham players we’ve seen in recent times), but in some games he seemed the polar opposite of say Peter Schmeichel, a ‘keeper whose very presence disturbed opposing forwards.  Not that he wasn’t brave – he took quite a few nasty knocks – but he always looked quite small out there, small and agile and entertaining.

That Watford home game was terrible.   I remember it well.   I’d been sitting in my seat itching to use the Gents.  Then a long ball comes out and, not for the first (or last) time that season, there was massive uncertainty in the middle of our defence.   Niemi came for the ball but Carlos Bocanegra was there too, so the ‘keeper’s leep took him up, over, then down, straight down on his head.   It looked nasty.   I leapt to my feet and ran for the alleys: “Are you a doctor?” someone asked; “No, desperate for a piss” I shot back.   When I returned Niemi was still down, and poor old Jan Lastuvka was warming up in as wooden a fashion as we saw from him that year.  Nerves and a half.  And of course it was Lastuvka’s first clean sheet that year.   And Hameur Bouazza hit the bar for Watford, I think.

Anyway, Niemi was out for a long time, and during his absence poor old Lastuvka kept on letting goals in.  Niemi returned but really never seemed the same again.

He was a good goalkeeper for Fulham and always came across (mainly in the club programme, it has to be said, as we never see much of him on the website or the news) as a good man, an interesting character with something about him.   It’s sad that he’s retiring, but hopefully we’ll see him at the ground every so often.  He served us well and will be missed.