Sitting back

Look at where Murphy and Bullard played against Wigan, and where they played against Portsmouth (remember that the top one is left to right and the bottom one is right to left).

A) both played next to each other (Bullard is under Chris Baird’s #34) and much deeper against Wigan

B) against Portsmouth Bullard was well in advance of Murphy, who was well in advance of where he was agains Wigan.

Part of this will be circumstance – we scored early against Wigan – but it might also be a reaction to quite a sloppy performance at Portsmouth.   Almost a ‘back to basics’ if you will.

Zamora’s good play

More visual goodies today.  One of the nice things in sport is watching athletes make difficult things look easy.   I think our first goal on Wednesday fits the bill there:

Roy on video

Top stuff again.

On Bullard: “well I’ve seen him play better”

From start to finish this is a terrific interview.   He praises Bullard while still acknowleding a lack of form, which I think is right.  We know Bullard’s having trouble out there, but he’s still capable of good things.

He praises his bench while saying that his loyalty to the first eleven is not guaranteed, which again seems right.

He talks about Chris Baird’s excellent cameo last night, he talks about how the team can play well and not win, and that there will be ups and downs throughout the year, etc, etc.  Sense, perfect sense.

I actually agree with everything he says in this interview.  To my mind this man knows football, and we are lucky to have him.   I only hope we get the results that will ensure his continued presence at the helm of the team.

Late edition: Fulham 2-0 Wigan

I’m going to have to write this up properly tomorrow, but here’s somewhere to discuss the game should you wish.

Ten days ago we were getting nervous.  Points weren’t coming, goals weren’t happening, other teams were winning.   Three games and five points later the world seems a slightly better place.  Tonight Fulham strolled to a nice, calm victory over Wigan Athletic, a 2-0 win that stood out for its very ordinariness.

The goals were Andy Johnson’s first and second in a Fulham shirt.  For the opener Zamora did well to tee up Konchesky down the left, Konchesky fired in a terrific cross, low and hard and right into Johnson’s path, and the striker could hardly miss from a yard out.  Made and scored by bald men.

The second was also pleasing.  Bullard, who sadly had another half-off night, took a quick free kick that sliced the Wigan defence apart and Johnson turned the ball back past the hurtling Kirkland for 2-0.  It rolled gently into the net like a Steve Davis red into the corner pocket.  Job done.

Johnson could have had a hat-trick but – when clean through – bobbled his second touch straight to Kirkland.  Johnson, understandably, appeared to have got a bit excited.  No matter, two goals is a decent statement of intent, and those of us who had begun to query his usefulness were reminded that patience is a virtue and match fitness takes time.    Here’s hoping he can build on this at Everton on Saturday.

The game also saw a welcome return to form for Bobby Zamora, who, in the first half at least, seemed to be enjoying himself in a role just a little deeper than Johnson’s.  Zamora regularly stepped back from the front line to demand possession, playing an integral role in some impressive buildup play.  His work for the first goal was very tidy. Simon Davies was something like his old self too, and Zoltan Gera again looked lively, hitting the post in the second half.  The Gera radar, if not fully calibrated, is perhaps not far off.  He could yet be our top scorer.

For all the excitement up front (it’s not every day we score twice), this game was about the quiet men at the back.   Danny Murphy was a delight to watch, hovering just in front of the back four, strolling around then lurching into action to nip the ball away, or head the ball away, or to generally be a nuisance.  In possession he kept things simple and quietly ran the game from deep.   He may well be our most underappreciated player.

A title that Aaron Hughes might claim too.  He and Hangeland neutralised the powerful Zaki and Hesky combination without bother, a terrific performance against very good opponents.  These two are a proper partnership now, but also fine players in their own right.   It doesn’t hurt having the excellent Mark Schwarzer behind them, but the latter had little to do tonight.

A final word for Chris Baird, whose late introduction as a defensive midfielder raised a few eyebrows but was an encouraging success.  Baird has played in this position for Northern Ireland, and today – with the game safe – got the nod ahead of fellow sub Leon Andreasen.   And he did a good job, winning several tackles and looking quite effective in his positioning and awareness.   He also sought out all available teammates for a hand-shake at the final whistle, which somehow seemed like a nice thing to do.  Hopefully his rehabilitation as a first team footballer will continue in the weeks ahead.

Bullard’s mistake

I’ve been skirting around this on TiFF, but here’s an attempt at the full analysis.  Please excuse the messy text down the side, for some reason I wrote the analysis in Photoshop, which is probably not dissimilar to attempting to do artwork in Word.

Anyway, the point is that we rarely see Fulham players dribble do we?  The reason for this – I think – is that dribbling loses the team structure.  Pass the ball from player A to player B and, if it’s not a cross-field pass, both players can close the opposition down if the pass goes awry/is miscontrolled.   Alternatively, if you run straight at a defender and lose the ball, unless someone’s running straight behind you (and why would they do that?) there’s absolutely nobody to close down the opposition and all of a sudden you’ve got an entire team running the wrong direction while the opposition has the ball and is under no immediate pressure.

So we’re not set defensively.  Contrast this with our usual passing moves, which will still maintain a sense of shape.  This is why Roy Hodgson works so hard with players in practice:  you have to be ready to defend with the ball, just as you have to be ready to attack without it.   These changes are called transitions, I think, and transitions work smoothly (attack to defence or defence to attack) if everything is controlled.

I’m not explaining this well, but I’m not alone in this:  my coaching books tend to take 200 pages to make a single point too, which is why they’re quite hard going.  Nevertheless, it’s fairly clear to me that Hodgson would have been absolutely furious with Jimmy Bullard for dribbling in this area of the pitch, a decision that stinks of a man *again* trying to do too much on his own rather than sticking with the team’s strategies.

Anyway, here’s the sequence.

Roy speaks

Video here.

“Dempsey’s been in exceptional form in training, so that was no surprise.  But it’s his first goal during my time as manager, which he sometimes reminds me of and sometimes I have to remind him of, so he was really delighted.  But it was a good goal.”

Technique

That there’s a pretty nifty volley…

(pic from the official site)

Further to last week’s mumblings

Portsmouth went right at us down the left again, to a staggering degree really.

Portsmouth 1-1 Fulham

For a team struggling for form this was a difficult test, so credit where it’s due: that was a good point.

Only just though. For a long time Portsmouth, and particularly Jermain Defoe, looked likely to bury us. Defoe, in thrilling form, was almost impossible to pick up, dropping deep and running hard at the Fulham defence, seriously threatening to score each time he did so. The second half began with a clever chip that dropped just over the bar, next he ran from the halfway line and smashed a shot just wide, then he came closer still, drawing a fine save from Schwarzer with another swerving drive. Things couldn’t go on like this, and sure enough it was Defoe who made Portsmouth’s opener. Yet another charge had the defence in a complete mess, Hangeland finding himself to Hughes’ right, both drawn towards Defoe like lemmings to a clifftop. Which left Peter Crouch unguarded. Defoe for once chose not to shoot, and Crouch could hardly miss, stroking his shot beyond the exposed Schwarzer.

After a bright start Fulham had faded badly. Again the midfield was enigmatic, quite solid and quite useful going forwards without doing either especially well. Simon Davies, on the left today, was decent enough; Danny Murphy earned a solid 7/10; Zoltan Gera – no chances this week – was very quiet; Jimmy Bullard’s game is going backwards. He fell over and lost possession to set up Portsmouth’s goal, and again failed to offer anything regularly dangerous from his set pieces. Perhaps the time has come for a rest. He is a good player but good players do not always play well, and currently his form is deserting him.

Ahead of them Bobby Zamora flickered in and out of the game, but did threaten occasionally. And perhaps Andy Johnson did too, but there is a nagging suspicion that the latter’s lightning pace is a thing of the past, and without it he is merely a hard working player with average technique and no particular eye for goal. Something of a worry, but there will be plenty of time to judge this in the weeks ahead. Record signings are generally given plenty of time to rediscover mislaid mojos.

Which is more than can be said for the man who must prove himself every season, Clint Dempsey. Having saved the club two years ago and more than done his bit last year, Dempsey again finds himself on the outside looking in. Our best player at West Brom, he was rewarded with another day on the bench against Sunderland. Today he was given twenty minutes to make something happen, and duly obliged with a late, late equaliser. Roy Hodgson loosened his tie and and finally abandoned his over-careful 4-4-2. Dempsey replaced Paintsil, Nevland replaced Gera. It became an anarchic 3-3-4, with Simon Davies an impressive part-time right back, Dempsey wide left and Nevland wide right. And so with three minutes to go Nevland crossed and Dempsey volleyed past David James with some skill. A vital goal and perhaps credit where credit’s due: this season Hodgson has taken stick for not using his subs very much; today he did and they paid off for him.

So where now? In isolation an away defeat against an in-form Portsmouth would have been understandable. But in the context of the current bad run a loss would have made life difficult for Hodgson and his players, so this point earns them some breathing space and perhaps allows a more relaxed approach to Wednesday’s game against Wigan. Thumbs just about up, but there is much improving to do.

Can’t win ‘em all

From The Onion:

ST. PETERSBURG, FL—In a postgame press conference following a Game 7 loss that halted another magical Red Sox playoff comeback, Boston second baseman Dustin Pedroia informed the nation that you can’t win them all. “Realistically speaking, you cannot win literally every game you play,” Pedroia said. “What I’m trying to say is, there are many variables that go into each game, like the weather, fatigue, emotion, and human error. Combine those elements with the randomness inherent in the universe, and it’s absolutely impossible for a team to win all the time. Every season, we have 162 games, which can be seen as 162 opportunities to either win or lose, taking into account that our opponents also want to win. I’m sure most fans believed otherwise, but I just hope everyone can accept this unfortunate truth.” To further illustrate his point, Pedroia drew a diagram based on Schrödinger’s famous cat-and-box gedankenexperiment to show that, although any baseball game has the potential to be won or lost, only one outcome can occur.

Thumbs and backsides

Does everyone agree that, without changing a thing, Hull are likely to slide down the table as the season wears on?

Why would this be the case? They have won their games fair and square. Why won’t they stay in the top six?

Because they’re not that good. Over time, without changing a thing, Hull will slide down the table.

If this is true for a team at the top of the table, a team who are playing above themselves, why would this not also be true for a team at the bottom of the table? If a team is ‘better’ than its current league position, we might reasonably expect it to improve as the season goes on, without changing a thing.

I think that’s fair. Some reasons why it might not happen:

a) The team is not playing below itself, but really is *that bad*

b) Having failed to start well, the team might make counter productive changes and abandon sound philosophies in the hope that something changes their fortunes. And while this may work, it is as likely to be counter productive

c) The team could continue to play at its current level, but continue to fail to win games. This is not the same as point a). I fully believe that it is possible for a league table to ‘lie’ for a whole season. While it’s not consolation for the teams involved, the worst teams are not always the ones who go down.

Or, as discussed, things will gradually improve as the team at the bottom ‘finds its level’.

Is the above all still reasonable? I think it is. In the 80s a man called Bill James noticed that you could sometimes identify baseball teams due to improve before a season by looking for teams that underachieved the year before. Similarly, he noted that teams overachieving were very likely to regress the season after. We see this all the time in football too, the most recent example being Reading, who bucked the trend for a full season before hurtling downwards the year after. The team in the first season wasn’t as good as their results made them look, and would have been expected to finish lower in the table the year after. The same will apply to Hull: while they’ll presumably beat the drop this season, they should be expected to struggle next year. It’s called the plexiglass principle in the States, or simply, regression to the mean.

So which of the above can we expect?

Option a) can, I hope, be discounted. While there’s no such thing as a team that’s too good to go down, and certainly no Fulham team should make that assertion, it does seem probable that we are not one of the worst three teams in the league.

Option b) will depend on our ability to generate results, I suspect. Note that I’m not saying that *any* changes would be counter-productive. Indeed, some changes to shake things up might be just what the team needs. And if anyone’s going to avoid panicking it’s Roy Hodgson. I believe that Hodgson is strong minded enough to not abandon his principles in a desperate attempt to change the team’s fortunes. Changes will be well thought out and organic, rather than desperate and rash. Which I think is a good thing. So Hodgson should steer clear of this pitfall. The board might not…

Option c) seems quite likely to me. If we continue to play as we are, even with the expected uptick in fortunes (goals), we may not survive.

Herein lies the problem. I believe that, as Fulham fans, we have to accept that in any given season we may get relegated. We can spend money on players who we think can help us to avoid these things, but any team who expects to finish in the bottom half of the table should also be prepared to have a season where things don’t go well and a bottom half finish becomes a bottom three finish. Not that we should glibly accept this, smile ruefully and curse the gods of probability, but reminding ourselves that the dividing line between success and failure in football is minute cannot do any harm. Not that this helps either, but I remain unconvinced that wholesale changes are required, or that if they are implemented they will necessarily make any difference to the season. Wins breed wins; we just need to nab a couple of the buggers. Just as a batsman in cricket may well rely on a dropped catch or two on his way to a hundred, we could do with a bit of unexpected fortune to kick start our own march to glory (or 14th place). The Sunderland escape might even have been that piece of good fortune….

Just a thought

Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.

Miles Davis

I’ve seen several versions of the quote, but that works for me.  Maybe Zamora and Johnson have something to show us yet.

Alright, I’ve nothing to say today, but hey, you get your money’s worth here…

Overloading

Now us with the ball.  This is interesting…

The Paintsil effect strikes again… (take out West Ham, when things got changed, and it’s a massive bias towards the right hand side of the field)

Are teams targeting John Paintsil?

I’m going to talk about stats again here. Please don’t get upset. I appreciate that ‘a clearance, a tackle, an interception’ are very crude measures, but I suspect that even crude measures may have something to offer us. And if they don’t, well, at least we’ve had a think, eh?

The other day we noticed that John Paintsil has made a load more tackles and clearances than Paul Konchesky this season. That gap can partly be explained by Konch’s absence against Arsenal, but there’s still a huge difference:

Paintsil has 28 tackles and 10 interceptions
Konchesky has 8 tackles and 5 interceptions

Tony Kallio had 3 tackles and an interception when he deputised for Konchesky.

We can supplement this information with the Guardian data, which shows that Paintsil also has 30 clearances this year, while Konchesky has 11. The Guardian also tells us that Paintsil has won 22 of his 28 tackles, while Konchesky has won only four of his eight.

What’s going on? Is John Paintsil defending better than Paul Konchesky? I wouldn’t say that. But why so much more activity?

Before we go too far, I should throw in that Simon Davies has won 10 tackles in front of Paintsil, while Zoltan Gera has won 14. Gera has 11 clearances and 6 interceptions. Davies has 7 clearances and 4 interceptions. So, simplifying, that’s 31 defensive acts from Gera and 21 from Davies. Gera would appear to be offering more help to Konchesky than Davies is to Paintsil, but it still doesn’t explain the difference.

It could be that Gera is doing a better job of pressurising wide players than Davies is. That would not result in a tackle but would certainly cause opposing players to pass the ball inside. Or, if midfielders make so many more tackles, perhaps Paintsil’s just been playing a bit further forward. Possible.

But does this really explain the vast difference between the two players? What if opposing teams are targetting John Paintsil?

The Telegraph has a nifty tool that allows you to look at where passes go. So for each game you can see what percentage of the time a team plays down the left, the middle, and the right. The graphic below shows the breakdown for our opponents this year.

Certainly there have been three games, Bolton, Blackburn and WBA where the opponents seemed to be focusing on our right flank. Could this be down to the players involved? I don’t know these teams well enough, but certainly Ricardo Gardner is an important part of the Bolton team, and West Brom’s left back (Robinson?) sees a lot of the ball most games. It’s hard to tell.

Or is the Hangeland and Hughes partnership involved here? Hangeland has been involved in 62 ‘incidents’, Hughes 48. Certainly there’s something there, but even this doesn’t explain the difference between the two fullbacks. Again, in total John Paintsil has made 68 defensive ‘acts’. Paul Konchesky has made 24.

What’s afoot? Let’s total the left flank and the right.

Paintsil 68, Hughes 48, Davies 21. Total of 137.
Konchesky 24, Hangeland 62, Gera 31. Kallio has 6. Total of 123.

If we split the total passes against us down (remember, 34% to our right flank, 36% down the middle, 30% down the left), we would (if we divvy up the middle between the left and the right) expect to see… about 137 acts down the right, and about 123 down the left. Which is exactly what we have. So neither flank is being more efficient with what’s coming their way than the other, they’re just dealing with things in a different way, with Paintsil picking up a disproportionate amount of work on our right and Hangeland and Gera combining for same on the left.

Why is this, and what does it mean? Possibly and probably nothing beyond the seemingly obvious dominance of Hangeland, and the less obvious but equally impressive inclination for Paintsil to get involved. If a ball is there to be won on the left Hangeland will deal with it. If it’s there to be won on the right Paintsil will. It’s a strange sort of arrangement, but I don’t suppose it particularly matters much.

So no, I don’t think teams are targetting John Paintsil.

F/A

This from earlier in the year, but it’s an average of where a team is likely to finish given a certain goal difference. So over the last six seasons, the team finishing 10th has averaged 46 goals and 53 concessions.

If we keep up at this pace who knows what’ll happen. Our attacking output (about 27 goals if extrapolated out) would leave us bottom, our current stinginess (38 goals) would suppose a team in fourth or fifth position. Weird.

UPDATE:  two potential precendents:

The only two teams since 2002 (as far back as I went) to complete a season with fewer than two goals per game in their matches.

Lies, lamp-posts, etc

I’ve posted these on TiFF, but it’s worth noting that Danny Murphy has 29 tackles so far this year. John Paintsil has 28 and Zoltan Gera 17. An argument could be made that while it’s admirable that Murphy’s making such an effort, perhaps 29 tackles isn’t enough.

Taking some teams at random:

Villa – Petrov has 39, Reo-Coker 31

Everton – Osman 27, Jagielka 26

Chelsea – Bosingwa 29, Mikel 21

Bolton – Muamba and McCann 30 each

Hull – Dawson 30, Marney 24

Boro – O’Neil 27, Shawkey 24

Sunderland – Malbranque 33!, Richardson 29

What on earth does it all mean? Stilian Petrov and Steed Malbranque the most tackling players in my mini-sample? Perhaps it’s suggestive that I shouldn’t be using these numbers to evaluate tackling but, if nothing else, it perhaps lets us know who’s up to what in the middle of the pitch.

Interesting note: Paintsil 28 tackles and 10 ‘interceptions’. Konchesky 8/5. Are teams victimising our right flank?

UPDATED – I’ve nicked some more stats from the Guardian Fantasy Football page.   Legend at bottom of table.  This is really all the average man in the street can come by.   I can filter by team and by position, so we can see what’s happening if we really want to.

Fulham 0-0 Sunderland

The footballing equivalent of finding that you’ve been burgled, but that the intruders only stole a bath mat and a pair of wellington boots.  A bad day for sure, but one that could have been much, much worse.

Exhibit A:  Kieron Richardson hits a laser beam free-kick, it crashes into the post, flies across the goal, hits the other post, still has the momentum to travel across the goal again, and finally settles with Mark Schwarzer, possibly via the post again.  A physics defying escape.

Exhibit B:  Kieron Richardson hits a laser beam free-kick.  It flies into the top corner.  The referee disallows it because Pascal Chimbonda has interfered with the defensive wall.  An irrelevant foul and a bizarre let off.

Exhibit C:  Djibril Cisse turns and smashes a volley against the crossbar from 25 yards.  Supporters in the Putney End are lucky not to have had a goal frame heading their way, but somehow the moorings held firm.  “Crikey”, as Toby’s subsequent text put it.

Also offered for consideration:  many other near misses that had Sunderland fans up and then down in interrupted ecstacy, including a goal line clearance by an alert Aaron Hughes.

Against that, Fulham had some chances.  The threat came in the form of the elusive Zoltan Gera, who time and again managed to find space and opportunities.  In the first half he wriggled free, half-rounded Gordon, but could not convert an awkward chance.  Soon after Andy Johnson crossed from the left, but Gera couldn’t sort his feet out and missed everything with the goal available.  Next he arrived from nowhere with a terrific diving header, but Gordon saved it.  He also shot high and towards Putney from the edge of the area.  In the second half he again slipped his market, but headed straight at Gordon again.

You can look at this as a failure to make things count, or you can applaud the player for causing far more trouble than the rest of his teammates combined.  I choose the latter, and was disappointed when Gera was substituted.  It seemed clear by then that Sunderland were very happy to deal with Johnson and Zamora, so in some ways Gera was our only hope.  He or Bullard, whose shooting is soon going to be compared to latter-era Papa Bouba Diop if he doesn’t sort himself out.  Bullard again ran around like a hyperactive child, and again mixed decent build up play with passes direct to the advertising hoardings.  He is doing too little with too much possession.

The consolation to all this was that the defence played quite well.  Hangeland was quietly faultless, and Aaron Hughes read the game well and helped keep things close.  Paintsil and Konchesky performed reasonably either side of them.  This is encouraging, in so far as we thought this may be a problem area this season.  Instead we find ourselves with five goals in seven games and a nagging feeling that this team is in danger of becoming over-coached, wooden, and predictable.  We shall see.

Last few Fulham Reviews

And while I’m being all commercial, I might as well plug my own work.  So yes, we are down to the last ten or so Fulham Review 07/08 books.   Has everyone got a copy?

90 pages of fun, the story of last year’s amazing escape.  Features match reports, photographs, essays, all sorts.    When they’re gone they’re gone.  And that may well be soon.

www.godsfoot.com to order.  £5 in the UK, plus £2 p&p.   Good value, we think, and everyone seems to like it, which is a relief.

Bullard contract talks

Never far away from the news this, is it?

Jimmy Bullard again says how happy he is at Fulham, and reveals that the club will speak with him in January.

People are taking this as a good sign.   But really the club could speak to him in January and say “We’ve accepted a £4million offer from Wigan.  So there’s your new contract, sunshine.”

Not that they’d be like that, but I don’t suppose the situation has changed since the last round of rumours.  We got info that time that Bullard’s agent was trying to stir something up, that the club were interested in offers, but that the dodgy knee would make any deals hard to complete.

Something to be aware of too:  SoccerPro have a 20% to 50% sale on this week.   I need to do a proper post about SoccerPro, because they’re excellent people, but if you need football stuff head on over.   They sell kits, boots, all sorts of equipment, and it’s all at a really good price.   This is mainly for our American readers – SoccerPro is an American company – but some of the prices are so good that it’s actually cheaper to get things shipped over than to buy them in England in the first place.  An example would be my Copa Mondial boots, which are loads at places like Pro Direct Soccer in the UK, but much less at SoccerPro.

As I’ve said, I’ll do a whole piece on the company soon because they’ve been good to me, but I thought I’d give a heads up because the sale’s pretty good and you could save good money.  Spread the word, people!

This was a public service announcement.  Normal blatherings will resume when I have something to say.

Sunderland

Proper preview later in the week, but here’s the football-data info.    Sunderland are doing alright this year, and will be hopeful of getting something from the game.     Fulham, as the yellow numbers show, need to start getting some shots on target.   We’re getting the strikes in happily enough, but they’re not good shots.  Sunderland seem to shoot less than we do, but have been a bit more efficient.  Perhaps that’s what happens when you have players like Steed around to do unexpected things and unbalance defences.

We shall see.  It promises to be another great weekend for football, perfect early winter weather.   More later…