Heh

In the Germany thrashings post the other day George made the site’s 5000th comment.   Which really doesn’t mean much, but hey, there we go.

Cheers, all – keep ‘em coming.  Not much to talk about for now, of course, but soon we will have proper football again.  Andy Johnson too.  All good stuff.

Spangler on Dempsey part 2

You really have to read these.  Adam got a great opportunity, and appears to have taken it well.  Absolutely fantastic stuff.

Part 2 up now.

Part 1 in case you missed it.

Seriously, go, go now.  I’m not going to recommend anything this strongly again.

Review: the forwards

We played last season with a strange mix of people up front.   I’ve reviewed all of this before, so let’s look forwards and assess what we have now.

Bobby Zamora

Andrew Johnson

Erik Nevland

Diomansy Kamara, who is injured

Not much is it?

This pruning was needed.  We had what seemed like dozens of quite good forwards, none really any better than the others.  Yes, Brian McBride will be missed, for all sorts of reasons, but I’m finding it interesting to watch Bobby Zamora, who – to my eyes – plays a very similar game to McBride.  Uncannily so.  Great spot by Roy, and I’m hopeful that we can rely on Zamora for a McBride-like 8-12 goals this year.

So far he has played a very unselfish game, using his chest a lot, and working very closely with the unproven Seol.   This has also been important:  Roy seems to want his forwards to play close together so they can link, pass, move.  Look at this:

Kuqi and Healy started.  That sounds odd, doesn’t it?  But they did.  And look how close together they were, as detected by the Telegraph’s heat sensors, or whatever they are.  Kuqi is 14, under the 11 shirt.

Now this:

Reading away, and look – McBride and Healy are so close that their shirts are on top of one another.  Big difference.   Now, sure, Sanchez’s style didn’t need the strikers to link up in the same way, but we can say with confidence (I think) that this is something Roy really focuses on.   Which I guess is partly why we haven’t really seen 4-5-1.

Alongside Zamora we have the tantalising talents of Erik Nevland, whose legend grew with some impressive games as a sub last year, and some much needed effort against Leicester in his first game this time out.   Nevland looks like a clever player with goals in him to me, another good pickup.

But the big news is Andrew Johnson.   I’ve said this before, but he could make a huge difference to the team.

If you think about American Football field position is everything.  One team tries to make 10 yards, then punts if they don’t make it.  If all goes well they can pin the opponents back, and hopefully regain possession in an advanced position.  You would rather start with 30 yards to the end zone than 90 yards, right?  Well the same applies to football.  We’ve all seen how difficult football can be when you’re pinned back in your own area, can’t get out, and have to deal with wave upon wave of attacks.   That’s what defending (too) deep can do: you get trapped.

So a big thing is to push up as much as you dare.   If you push up too far you run the risk of leaving too much space behind you.  This is what I’ve drawn above:  the through ball between defenders is up for grabs, and if the white forward is Andy Johnson the red team is in trouble; if it’s Heidar Helguson they’re okay.   So, with Andy Johnson the red team need to play deeper, which makes it harder to pin us back, which means that, if/when we win the ball, we have less far to travel with it to make chances.   Pace is very useful.

The other thing with Johnson is that he works hard, which will a) endear him to the fans, and b) help with the way we’re trying to play.  If he scores some goals – and he should – then that’s a double bonus.

Sorry for getting all bullshitty on you, but this is my interpretation of why the Fulham team’s being built like it is, and how it could work well.    We shall see.