Careful now

From the excellent Guardian chalkboards:

It may well take Fredrik Stoor a time to settle in – certainly he looks like he might be alright – but today showed partly why he hasn’t broken through yet.  Aside from several testing defensive outings, he has also been quite iffy with the ball.  Today Chris Baird gave the ball away once in the first half.   He got injured and Stoor replaced him, and in the second half Stoor gave the ball away nine times.  It can be hard to find the pace of the game, especially in a match like this, but equally, you can’t afford to give Arsenal the ball cheaply.  The red arrows above show donations: some of Stoor’s are doubled up because he gave the ball away twice in the same place.

Arsenal 0-0 Fulham

A proud point, earned by 12 good footballers.  The site of a Fulham side working the angles, zigzagging up the pitch with precise speed and causing a big team trouble was beautiful to see.  This team is really coming together now.

It is now well established that you build a side through the middle, and in Schwarzer, Hughes, Hangeland, Murphy and Etuhu we now have a base to rival anything seen at the Cottage in recent years, and that’s being conservative.  The goalkeeper was magnificent today, making saves that were numerous, various and marvellous.  In the first half he charged from his line to block one clear chance, in the second he somehow diverted a Diaby header wide with what looked like his knee.  In between he got fingertips to stinging near post shots, claimed crosses with authority, and did everything a goalkeeper can do to help his team.  Ahead of him Hughes and Hangeland were Hughes and Hangeland; business as usual.  They’re bloody good.  And Murphy and Etuhu… what is there to say?  They make a terrific combination.  It took Etuhu a while to find his role in the team, sometimes teammates seemed nervous to pass to him, sometimes he didn’t use the ball well, but in recent weeks he has taken his game to a new level, revelling in a destroyer role, passing cleanly and accurately, and freeing Danny Murphy to get on with the important business of running football matches. Add in some stirling work from Davies, Dempsey, Konchesky, Baird/Stoor and the two forwards and you have a recipe for good things.

Let us not forget that Arsenal are a fine side.  Arshavin and Nasri are the kind of tricky midfielders that can make something out of nothing, carve up the most disciplined defences.  Van Persie has grown into one of the game’s better forwards, with a telling touch, time on the ball and a whiplash left foot that punishes defensive hesitation.   But they couldn’t get through.  The whites held firm – and this is the good bit – kept the ball when stopping Arsenal attacks.  So instead of another wave of red shirts pouring on, Fulham went right back at them.  Davies was at his tricky best down the right, Dempsey ran himself into the ground again, and Zamora and Johnson worked the channels tirelessly.  Zamora in particular showed what a fine footballer he can be, and might have scored with a couple of half chances.  Johnson was buzzing around and making a nuisance of himself, but was also seen popping up on the edge of our own area when circumstances demanded.  It’s not hard to see why Roy Hodgson wanted him in this team.  Johnson is our most expensive and presumably best paid player, and works *so* hard.  It’s right.  It’s how it should be.

The last few minutes were extraordinarily tense, and where 4 minutes of injury time came from I don’t know, but as I sat there watching I wasn’t thinking “wow, imagine if we pulled this off”, I was thinking “yep, we can do this, and we’re good enough to do this”.  The point was no fluke, and now we are 7th.

Ha

He could be pretty good…

Tomorrow

I did this for a website called Arsenal Insider.  It’s not up yet but I’ll post a link when it is.

So what’s been going on at Fulham since we last met?

We’re a good team.  Hard to beat (but not hard to draw with) away, invincible at home, so yes, this is a proper team now.

We’re you sad to see Bullard leave the club?

Not in the end, no.  He made an idiot of himself with all this talk of going on strike, and in the end ran off for the money.  Hull City indeed.   And, not unexpectedly, the team has stepped it up in his absence.  We’ve got the old Simon Davies back, Clint Dempsey is doing a fine job on the left, Danny Murphy is on fire in Bullard’s old role, and Dickson Etuhu is impressing us all.  So while we lack a bit of depth, we don’t miss him.

Zamora scored his 4th of the season for you v Swansea. Have you been disappointed in him this season?

Yes and no.  He’s generally played very well for us, but as a forward you do need to score sometimes, and this is where he was lacking.   A lot of chances have come and gone over the course of the year, and sometimes you wonder if it’s not just a mental thing with him, but he’s got 2 in 2 now and we’re all hopeful that he can go into a bit of a purple patch to close out the season.   The other thing to note is that we’re set up quite defensively, particularly away from home, so perhaps our forwards are better than they might look.

What has Dacourt brought to your side?

Depth and experience.  He’ll do a job here and there, but picked up an injury against Swansea so may not be fit for the weekend.

Has Arsenal’s form (or lack of it) surprised you this year?

Slightly, although it’s not that bad is it?  All teams will have their ups and downs and I’m sure you’ll come again.  What does surprise me is some of the negativity I’ve read about your players, especially Adebayor.  Not having seen him first hand much I’m in no position to comment really, but I do wonder if some of your fans appreciate how lucky they are with some of the players you have.   The game’s getting very defensive now and only the very best forwards can consistently dominate teams for weeks on end.

Which fulham player will threaten our five-game run of keeping clean sheets?

Ha!  Zamora!   We usually go for a 0-0 away so it could be cagey. Watch for Dempsey from set pieces and for Johnson on the break.

RVP has been on fire for us lately, how will Hangeland & Co handle him?

He’s the big threat isn’t he?  I can still picture him peppering the advertising hoardings at the cottage earlier in the year with shots pinged in from around the D.  I don’t know that our defenders are good enough to stop him shooting, so again I guess it’ll be a question of whether his radar’s working.   I worry about Nasri too, who I think is a terrific player who will only get better.  He and Arshavin could tie us in knots if we’re not careful.

Arsenal have been recently frustrated by sides who put ten men behind the ball, will this be a tactic Hodgson will employ?

It might look like this, but not really.  Away from home we simply don’t commit many players to attack, so you’ll probably see the back four being conservative, Etuhu and Murphy sitting deep, and Davies and Dempsey tucking in from the wings to stiffen our defence.  Added to that, Johnson sometimes drops back into our half too.  So yeah, we
will defend.

And finally, what’s your prediction for the game?

0-0  seems likely. I am going to put money on an away win, 1-0 Zamora just because it seems like the sort of thing that might happen, but realistically we’ll probably lose a close game.

Oh

Bit of a rush tonight, but here’s another ace post from Adam Spangler.   Adam gets at football’s soul like nobody else.  Flick around his site and then close your eyes; football, beautiful football.

Awards, etc

I have just been reminded that the football fan census awards are closing soon.   Please go here to vote for as many Fulham writers as you are able, including me here if you feel so inclined.  

On another note, does anyone out there understand wordpress?  I am thinking of adding adverts in a vain attempt to cheapen the look of the site, sell out and generate money (“it’s not a sellout if nobody buys it; I can’t be blamed if nobody likes it”  -  J. Hatfield), but have no idea how to add this sort of thing in.  Also I would like to make the site look more ‘professional’, but this is not an easy undertaking either.

New Times bit up

Added this the other day and forgot to mention it.

Fulham 2-1 Swansea

A cool, sharp night by the Thames, a thrilling cup replay… does it get any better than this?

Having been quite fortunate to survive the initial encounter in Swansea, Fulham did the business tonight.  It wasn’t easy – Swansea again looked a handy team – but in the end there was only going to be one winner.

Fulham rested Johnson and Murphy, using Nevland up front with Zamora and Dacourt in midfield with Etuhu.  Neither of the replacements lasted, Dacourt collapsing in a heap in the middle of the second half, Nevland going off at the same time after a torrid game.  Nevland has rightly won many admirers for his substitute performances, but he really does look a different player when used from the start, and not in a good way.  He had one of those days, missing a number of half-chances that we might have expected him to put away.  Sadly his approach play didn’t make up for this, and it must have been a relief to him when Hodgson brought him off.

On came Zoltan Gera who, not for the first time this year, showed renewed signs of life as a sub.  He may yet take the Dempsey approach to first team recall, especially if, as last night, the latter is required for forward duties.  Accompanying him onto the pitch was Danny Murphy and, not surprisingly, the game suddenly turned.

Murphy is going through a purple patch where he almost seems to be the complete midfielder.  We saw his tackling in the first half of the season but now, freed by Dickson Etuhu’s unselfish and effective play, Murphy is using his full bag of tricks.  His passing has always been good, but he’s doing it further up the pitch now, and he’s taking control of games in a way we haven’t seen for a while.  It is quite hard to put into words, but somehow having him out there takes things to another level.  He’s very, very good.

He needed to be because by then we were a goal down.  Mark Gower ran for too long, escaping Etuhu (yellow carded early so on his best behaviour thereafter) and then drawing no challenge from a backpedaling Paintsil, he slipped the ball inside to Jason Scotland, who buried the chance with alarming ease.  He didn’t need a clever turn this time – nobody was anywhere near him.  Something about this burly striker gives our defence the willies.  Aaron Hughes had trouble with him all night, and we haven’t said that very often this year.

This woke Fulham up somewhat, and, with Murphy and Gera injecting some urgency to things, the game turned into a minor thriller.  Simon Davies, whose balance and quick feet never cease to astound me, moved from a simmer to a boil, cavorting down the right and looking determined to put his countrymen in their place.  When our midfield clicks it can be a joy to watch, and now we unleashed a torrent of pressure on the Swansea goal.  Chances came and went in increasingly frenetic attacks, then Davies whipped in a corner, the ball flew into the net, and Clint Dempsey was off screaming.  1-1!

Davies jinked past his man again and stabbed a cross onto Bobby Zamora’s head that the big man could only score from.  It was the sort of cross to give defences nightmares, a slow, drifting ball that is so perfectly calibrated as to enduce silent screams of despair from anyone with designs on cutting it out.  There it soared, from wide on the right all the way into the six yard box, so deft, so gentle, so thoroughly unstoppable.  Artistry. Genius.  Goal.  Zamora stormed off with joy; Davies and Paintsil hugged with glee by the right touchline.

As the Swansea fans had pointed out earlier in the game: bring on United.

Mr quite consistent

	Apps	Gls	Games per goal
Crewe	132	27	5
Liverpool	170	25	7
Charlton	56	7	8
Spurs	22	2	11
Fulham	56	8	7

Welcome back, Joe

The man cannot be pinned down…

(heatmap from ESPN)

Dickson answers his critics

There’s nothing to complain about there…

Fulham 2-0 WBA

West Bromwich Albion are a likeable side, but have what you might call a soft underbelly, and Fulham ripped them apart. Punishers-in-chief were the team’s oustanding midfielders, with Danny Murphy strutting around like Michel Platini, ably supported by his underappreciated henchman, Dickson Etuhu. The two were a delight to watch today and absolutely dominated the middle of the park. That Simon Davies and Clint Dempsey were also in rare form meant that West Brom were lucky to get away without a hiding. In the event we had to make do with 2-0, but this only tells part of the story. The catalogue of fun, then, in chronological order:

Free-kick, early on. Murphy bends it over the wall and Scott Carson in the West Brom goal *just* palms it onto the post and out. Close.

Fulham are pinging the ball around for fun. The ball drops to Dickson Etuhu on the edge of the box, who unfurls a hammer of a volley, with his left foot no less. Scott Carson can barely have seen it, so must be congratulated for keeping it out, and for not being swept into the net with the ball a la Hotshot Hamish.

Clint Dempsey is having a typically marauding afternoon. He enjoys the knowledge that West Brom are having trouble pinning him down, cuts infield and strikes a soaring left-footed drive, which bangs into the angle of bar and post and away.

Murphy again. A curler from distance, hits the bar! “One of those days?” wonder 20,000 Fulham fans.

Simon Davies nods down into Bobby Zamora’s path, and Zamora’s through. His shot, however, is shanked over the bar.

West Brom get in on the fun. A (defensive) diving header from centre-back Meite on the edge of his box beats Carson, who turns on his heels and just beats the ball to the goal-line, pawing it wide for a corner.

Then we score. Murphy takes a free-kick short to Etuhu, who stops the ball dead for Murphy, who casually launches the ball into the space on the right wing. John Paintsil appears in said space, crosses, Johnson gets a touch, ZAMORA SCORES! A relief for him, and the crowd loves it. We all want him to succeed, and here he is, getting that bastard monkey off his back. 28 hours without a goal was it?

He nearly adds another seconds later, as Dempsey races the length of the pitch, dinks the ball inside, and Zamora sends it screaming over the bar. That would’ve been too much.

Brede Hangeland climbs high from a corner and heads against the crossbar. What is going on?

Murphy, who is controlling the game without even running now, sends a delicious ball into the box, Zamora knocks out Carson with a volley, and Andy Johnson knocks the rebound into the empty net. Well done, Johnson, thoroughly deserved.

Davies puts Johnson through again, but Carson is alert to the danger.

West Brom have another go at an own goal, with a clearance smashing into another defender’s head and towards goal, but Scott Carson, who earned his money today, manages to keep it out.

At this point, with Swansea on Tuesday on his mind, Hodgson sensibly withdrew Johnson, Zamora, then Murphy. Diomansy Kamara and Erik Nevland took over up front and Olivier Dacourt in the middle. We now saw plenty of ole football, and the unusual sight of Kamara taking a short corner to Hangeland – twice.

The ref blows and we’ve cruised to a wonderfully entertaining win. Full credit to Hodgson for the way he has handled a tricky few weeks. In that time we’ve hardly played at home, but have kept on picking up points here and there. On today’s evidence, we really have little to worry about.

Hitting the target

This is the proportion of shots on each team’s goal that have been on target.  The theory is that the better you defend the harder it is for teams to get in good shots.  By this you either make them shoot from distance, or harry them when they shoot close in.

Not much variation between the best and the worst, although I guess, over the season, if 50% of the shots you allow are on target, that’s better than having 60% on target isn’t it?  The margin for error on this must be fair, so don’t read anything into exact placings, but it’s good that we’re among the better sides.   West Brom, tomorrow’s opponents, are out on their own at the bottom.   Again, it doesn’t look like much, but I bet if I tried I could find ten small edges like this, and between them they’d add up to quite a few points in the course of a year.

American keepers

Thanks to Derek for this.  A while ago we pondered the phenomenon that is American goalkeepers.

Ives Galarcep has an answer.

IVES- This is one that has been asked for years. I can recall having a conversation with Peter Schmeichel about this (name-dropping alert) and he had a pretty sensible theory that has become the popular theory. American athletes play multiple sports that involved using hands (football, baseball, basketball) so their hand-eye coordination is already established at a young age. Throw in the belief that bigger and more athletic soccer players tend to be pushed toward the goalkeeper position, and you wind up with a deeper pool of big and athletic prospects with great hand-eye coordination.

Makes sense to me…

Masterchef

This man’s dream is over:

Of all this year’s contestants, Chris seemed to want it most.  He wanted to change his life.  It burned inside him, you could see how much he wanted it.  And he was a thoroughly nice man to boot.  But today (not today really) he cooked some meals that didn’t work very well, and he’s out at the semi-final stage.  Back to a call centre management job, as I recall.  Gutted for him.  I wish he’d got to the final.  Meanwhile, the remaining three march on.  Two of them seem young enough to bounce back from any disappointment that may lie ahead, which is why I’m rooting for Matt, who is older and therefore probably more desperate.  I can identify with desperation.  Matt sees a way out of whatever it is he does.  Let’s hope it works for him.  Everyone needs a way out.  I’m reading David Nobbs’ wonderful Reggie Perrin omnibus at the moment.  It’s all too real.

And then, out of the blue, I received a phone call.   Hade and I have a regular Indian restaurant and he closed down in late December.  Business had been slow for some time, and we’d been half expecting this for a while.  Tooting is full of good Indians, and the competition is fierce.  Lose your way and customers will go elsewhere.  We didn’t think our man had lost his way, but we were frequently the only visitors he had, so what do we know?

Anyroad, just before Christmas the owner revealed his plan to us.  A refit!  Wow.  He’ll still be around then.  I’d had a bottle or two of wine at that point, so mumbled something about trying to write an article to publicise the reopening.  I wasn’t sure how I’d do this, but, well, that’s what drunken promises are all about isn’t it?

And now the restaurant’s re-opening.  Tomorrow.  We’ve both got terrible colds (still), so I’m not sure about this, but worse, the owner happened to remember what I’d said:  “and you promised you could get something in the newspaper, I remember”.

Oh.

I said what I said because Hade and I had frequently discussed how we might go about promoting our favourite restaurant, and this had been one of my ideas.   But not in the really real world.  What now?  Buy a dictaphone, write a story of Tooting’s restaurant scene, featuring the fall and rise of the Shahnaz, and then send it off to every magazine and newspaper in the capital?  Post it on the Times Fanzine Fanzone and hope nobody minds?  Tell a few people at work?

Oh dear.

Something good may come of this.   Hade and I are invited to the relaunch party, and may yet meet Sadiq Khan, MP, who likes the area’s restaurants.  That would be exciting.   But how to avoid embarrassment over a drunken half-baked idea?

Who knows?

Here is my own dinner tonight.  I told you we’re ill.  First you get the mushy peas, then you get the sweetcorn, then you get the half-toasted old baguette, then the cheese comes over the top of it all…

World Soccer: Roy’s tactics

There you go.  Hardly a breach of copyright if it’s poorly lit and illegible?

World Soccer features Roy’s tactics over the years.  It’s not a massively surprising piece (he didn’t used to play a 4-2-4 or anything), but worth a quick read, if only for the joy of seeing our manager profiled in a tactical context.  Roy’s getting the respect he deserves, although the elephant in the room is the club’s continued inability to even threaten away from home.  And if we had chances last night, well yes, you’re supposed to get chances.  But you need several of the things if you want to score, generally.  Lamenting one or two close shaves misses the point.

World Soccer is a good read anyway, but our friend Brian Glanville’s been talking about Fulham recently too:

Talking of Fulham, what a dismal display on television by Jimmy Bullard, asserting that had Fulham not let him go he would have been quite prepared to strike.

This was surely a shabby return for Fulham’s patience during the 15 months he was out of the game with his injured knee. An old Italian expression comes back to me, he who “spits in the plate where he has abundantly eaten.” It still puzzles me that Bullard should so euphorically go off to Hull, even if they are prepared to extend his contract from the 18 months it had to run at Fulham to four years, plus largely increasing his wages. Does he really believe that Hull can even remotely dream, as things are, of one day playing in Europe?

He has more to say in the current issue.  I’ve laid off the whole sorry affair.  It’s one of those things that I don’t think anyone has really come out of with any credit.  Bullard’s looked like an ass, Phil Brown’s gamble backfired massively and instantly, and we have £5 million but ‘issues’ in the middle of the park.  Shame.

Roy’s reaction

Here.

Manchester United 3-0 Fulham

Jamie is back from ‘the theatre of dreams’:

One of those games that is best forgotten about as quickly as possible – there is no point in worrying about a defeat like this. Manchester United exist on such a different level that a 3-0 victory against the tenth best team in the country is utterly routine and unexciting – the players barely celebrating their goals, the atmosphere amongst 70,000 spectators muted (at best), and the ground half empty with five minutes remaining. We never looked like upsetting the apple cart – perhaps lacking the necessary ‘fight’ and belief or perhaps simply hypnotised, and left hopeless, by our opponents’ sublime play.

The whole game seemed to be played at a walking pace, United always entirely comfortable and Fulham typically pedestrian whenever possession came their way. The stupor was punctuated thirteen minutes in when Paul Scholes thumped a volley goalwards – Schwarzer got down to it well but could only fumble into the net. Soon afterwards, the usually ultra-reliable Australian was at fault again as he came for a ball that was never there to claim and ended up scrambling across goal in vain as O’Shea squared for Berbatov to tap home. Game over.

In between those first half goals had been our only chance, as Paintsil (who was our brightest light) marauded down the right and crossed for Zamora, who headed a difficult chance just wide. Another opportunity came the same player’s way in the second half – again a sharp chance, this time poked wide with his left foot. Zamora was on his own up front in the absence of the ‘injured’ (rested) Andy Johnson – a hard task. Typically, he showed impressive work-rate throughout and some nice touches, whilst missing the rare opportunities that came his way.

Not that a goal would have made any difference, other than to break United’s ridiculous record of 13 games without conceding. They were in second gear throughout and could easily have scored seven had they put their minds to it; instead, one more was enough – a tap-in for Rooney from Park’s cross-shot after a poor defensive header by Hangeland.

What else happened? A couple of good saves by Schwarzer, a silly tackle by Paintsil which earned him a booking, and late appearances for academy graduates Milsom and Brown. We showed up, rolled over, and went home. I thought it one of the least entertaining games of the season; on the other hand my Dutch friend, at his first Premiership match, loved every minute. So at least there was that. On to the West Brom game, which might be an actual contest.

(shrug)

First we take Manhattan

I like the Bundesliga.  The Germans somehow seem to have kept their league as it ought to be, and, despite having the ultra-rich Bayern Munich around, still seem able to throw up surprising games and interesting situations.   As an aside, there’s a book called Tor!, about German football, which is a terrific read.  I read it on various trains around Germany at the 2006 World Cup.  Wonderful.

Anyway, have a read of this article:

Hertha pulled off the biggest coup of the season: “the old dame” of German football threw away her Zimmer frame and leapt all the way to the top of the table following the 2–1 win over a pretty abject Bayern Munich. Lucien Favre’s young, depleted side did it in their usual fashion, a modicum of possession, chances and fuss the order of the day. Their attritional style and minimalist results – nine out of 12 wins have been by a single-goal margin – have kept them off the radar for most of the campaign, but they’re now the pace-setters with only 14 matches to go for the first time in their Bundesliga history. In 27 years in the elite division, they’ve never before been top in the second half of a season.

A quick scan of the papers demonstrates that most experts are still mystified by this team. When Favre took over 18 months ago, they were a laughing stock and widely tipped to be relegation fodder. A tenth-placed finish in May hardly set the pulses of the notoriously hard-to-please Berliners racing, but a few excellent manoeuvres in the transfer market and some coolly efficient wins have earned the neutrals’ respect, if not exactly adulation. The local broadsheet, Tagesspiegel, which has been swooning over Hertha’s unexpected progress all season, labelled them “heroes of the system” and emphasised the power of a collective ambition. “Their counter-attacks don’t rely on ideas, they follow a strict plan,” it wrote. “Moves (like the one that lead to Andriy Voronin’s winning goal) can be practised, and Hertha do practise them, all the time.” Good luck and coincidence play much less of a role than most people thought, the paper’s experts insisted.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it?   Maybe there is hope for Fulham yet…