Fulham Fans’ Forum: just back, quick overview

Just back in from the fans’ forum.  Topline findings:  we’re in good hands.  Roy and Alastair Mackintosh ‘get it’.  They’re football people and seem to be in tune with what Fulham is about.

Specifics…

Stadium to head towards 30,000 and beyond over the next two years, talked about redevelopment of the Riverside and Hammy Ends.

Goal music is the subject of focus groups at the moment.  The good news here is that Alastair Mackintosh seems, reading between the lines (there’s a lot of this), to be against the idea as well.  He made some commment about kids liking it, but also that he’d never had this at Man City and that he’d like fans to be able to make their own atmosphere.  Everyone seemed pleased about the atmosphere at the Cottage, so….

Er… Tom Watt read out my question about Reading last year, specifically, did the players suddenly play well because it looked like they were relegated and had nothing to lose.  Roy made it clear that this was not the case, and talked about how the team just kept on playing as they always do.  Later in the evening he talked about football matches being unpredictable buggers, and all you can do is prepare the team mentally and physically and go from there.   His quote, I think, was “I’m not a gambling man, but if I was I wouldn’t bet on football matches”.

Other things:  Someone asked why Hangeland doesn’t always pick up the tall forward.  Hodgson said that Brede and Aaron like it the way they are with the left-right thing and prefer to stay that way.  Roy conceded that sometimes against the likes of Peter Crouch you have to accept that you won’t win all the headers, so you have to focus on other things like getting in front of him, and focusing on the second ball.

Someone else asked about backup at centre-back, and we got an interesting response about how the sort of calibre player we wanted would have cost too much (fee plus wages), even for some loan options.  It’s a hard balancing act, getting someone in to be a backup to a first choice pairing, and it sounds like Roy just wasn’t able to land someone who ticked all his boxes.  He was quite dismissive of Adrian Leijer’s future, but mentioned Chris Baird (who he conceded was more of an Aaron Hughes than a Brede Hangeland) and also reminded people that John Paintsil plays centre-back too.

Someone asked about Seol’s presence in the team, and Roy was straight back saying that he thought Seol was unlucky to be dropped after two good performances against Hull and Arsenal.  Fair enough.

He also praised Clint Dempsey a couple of times, but jokingly said that he and Clint were often at loggerheads, Clint being a good player, but thinking he’s a *very* good player.  This was half tongue in cheek, for all those taking it too literally.

I stammered out something about whether he’d always played a passing game or whether he’d done so because he’d inherited midfielders who pass and don’t tackle.   He replied that he had. I had a part 2, about the role of Andreasen or Etuhu, but had at this point frozen and failed to ask that question.

He was quite down on the state of the academy, but made the important point that managers aren’t going to look to bring on 15 year olds because most managers will be out of a job before these players are relevant to the club.  Which is not to say that he’s not doing much – he is – but I now see why we have to be practical about these things.  He said that our academy has been about bringing on local kids, but that there wasn’t the talent there that he’d want to see.  He did single out Wayne Brown and Rob Milsom, but nothing much more.  Had I been bold I’d have asked about Laribi and Moscatiello, but the cat was still elsewhere with my tongue.

So that’s about that.  I’ve probably forgotten a lot, but hey ho.  He told a Tommy Cooper joke and an anecdote about Frank Sinatra, and I got him to sign a copy of “Schultz” by JP Donleavy (“expect the worst, and that’s what you’ll get, only it will be much worse”, quoted in a press conference before the Reading game last year, and now a treasured possession).  He is apparantly a big Donleavy fan and is re-reading his books.  Needless to say, I smiled like an idiot at this point and offered nothing useful in return.

I took the opportunity to nip out by the pitch:

Wish I’d taken a camera now (these were on the mobile), but hey.

Something different: Moritz Volz in Southampton 2-2 Ipswich

Thanks to the wonders of modern transport I was able to get from work in Weybridge to meet my friend Dan in Basingstoke by just after 6pm.   From there we drove to the south coast, parked up in a dusty red light area, and wandered towards St Mary’s Stadium.    We stopped for a pint on the way, where I banged my head on a low beam.  Fine, it happens, but until this morning I couldn’t actually remember much about the game.

Which wasn’t the game’s fault, because that was quite lively.   We had two teams whose approach to the game very much mirrors our own:  get it down and pass it.   As it worked out Ipswich looked the better of the two teams, but Saints had their moments too.

This Southampton team could have been a contender.  Recent alumni include our own Chris Baird, but also the likes of Theo Walcott, Gareth Bale and Kenwyne Jones.  Dan pointed out that the last three Championship top scorers have all recently been Saints players.   I’m thinking Kevin Phillips, Ricardo Fuller perhaps… who would the other be?  Anyway, these players have slipped through their hands and now almost the entire team is made up of teenagers or young twenty somethings.   It’s an interesting predicament in that all of the players’ destinies are uncertain, they could amount to anything, and there’s something nice about seeing young players given a chance.

Against that, without some leadership out there the lack of ingrained good habits, of defensive shape, of any kind of presence, really can hold a team back.   So that’s Southampton, young, gifted, and extremely vulnerable.

But they did take an early lead.  The ball was passed around beautifully, Andrew Surman cut in from the left and fizzed a right footed drive along the floor and into the corner of Richard Wright’s net.    So far so good.   Ipswich are a good team though, and climbed back into the match quickly.  Their passing was good, their defence much more organised than Southampton’s, and soon it seemed that there would eventually only be one winner.   Our man Moritz Volz played a part in the equaliser, his surging run ending with a clever layoff to an overlapping midfielder, and the ensuing cross should have resulted in a goal.   Saints couldn’t clear though despite several opportunities to do so, and Owen Garvan, one for the future, rammed home an equaliser.

At this point Ipswich took control.  Their passing and overall shape was too much for Southampton, whose defence was let off twice by an over zealous safety-first linesman.  Good saves, narrow escapes, pressure piling on.   It continued into the second half, and eventually Ipswich broke through, Alan Quinn heading home from a good cross by Volzy.  Saints looked ripe for a mauling, but to their credit threw on some attacking players and scrambled an equaliser with 20 minutes left.   This shocked Ipswich back into life, but a winner wasn’t found and 2-2 just about suited everyone involved.

Championship life must be quite hard for teams like Southampton.  A 30,000 stadium doesn’t look so good half-full (15,000 were there last night), and there are already rumours that Adam Lallana, their gifted young midfielder, could be going to Fulham in January.   If they sell their best youngsters so fast, what then?  Teams can’t continue to play with untried teenagers, not without some guidance and know-how to help them along.   There’s the nucleus of a nice side there at the moment, but it looks about three years from maturity, and lacks 3-4 good players.

Lallana, incidentally, looks like he could be a Roy Hodgson type.  He’s technically able, one of those players for whom a first touch is never an issue, the ball comes, he’s in control.   His passing wasn’t as quick as Fulham’s, but that’s not unexpected because that’s how we play.  He’ll run with it, and looks quite adept at so doing, but isn’t especially quick so wouldn’t be a natural wide player.   I could see Roy turning him into something pretty handy.

Volzy played soundly.  Right backs aren’t always in the best position to influence games but Ipswich will be glad to have him there.   He does what he’s meant to do, takes care of business, then, if it’s on, joins the attack.   He worked hard and fits in well with the team’s style of play,  was instrumental in the build up to the first goal, and directly created the second, so you can’t really argue with that can you?