Staying home

Laws of Fulham #1:  Thou shalt not get caught upfield away from home.

Murphy in particular didn’t even try to get involved up the pitch.    Still made a goal though (with what’s really becoming a trademark sliding throughball).

The strange case of Emmanuel Adebayor

Intriguing.  Dickson Etuhu linked to this on his facebook page.

I don’t know enough about Adebayor really, but I remember how good he looked at the Cottage last year.  He’s a fine player, and I’m not sure what booing him accomplishes.   He’s not going to suddenly try harder because half the stadium’s on his back.    Not everyone works that way.   I know if I was booed I’d probably want to leave.   Sounds bad but there we are.  I’d try to find somewhere to play where I was appreciated, or ignored, or at least tolerated.  I don’t think I’m a bad person, but I can take things personally and I wouldn’t be interested in having people giving me grief if I felt I didn’t deserve it.

Star players get a little leeway here.   Whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation, Adebayor will not have any problem finding a new club.   If he decides that his time at Arsenal is over it probably is, and he’ll try his luck somewhere else.  Fine, his choice, good luck to him.

Not all players are afforded such freedom.  Take our man Dickson.   His career has taken him up and down and always around the fringes of the big time.   Before he had even kicked a ball for Fulham, a prominent poster on the message boards went to extraordinary lengths to slate Etuhu, a prolonged attack that really made me wonder what was going on.   Etuhu was at the time struggling to return from injury, looked uncertain in early appearances, and a lot of the messageboard abuse amplified.   I found this a little bewildering, and was delighted as Etuhu’s performances moved from tentative to pretty good, and then to ‘bloody hell he can play’.   We don’t know where his game will go next, but if he continues to improve then he has a very bright future.  If he stays at his current level he’s still a good player.   And this is a player that the fans were so, so quick to jump on.    The easy thing for Etuhu would have been to wonder what on earth he’d done wrong (he did, I’m almost certain, read the messageboards around this time, and I don’t think he was very happy), but he answered his critics on the pitch, which is a cliche but happens to be the best answer to these things.  Now the fans love him and he’s an important part of a good team.  He must be delighted.

All this applies to Chris Baird, to a lesser extent.  He took a load of crap, not remotely deserved, but is now recognised as a fair squad player who has, it must be said, barely put a foot wrong in limited action this year.   Did booing him help?  No.  (And in fact his destruction of Jimmy Bullard’s nose now seems remarkably astute given the way things have unfolded.)

It is difficult for footballers.  I’m not interested in the “he earns x, I’ll give him all the abuse I want” argument.   We know that money is nice, but it doesn’t change who a person is, and giving a player grief is counter productive no matter what his bank balance might be.   (I don’t really understand the “I pay my money, booing is my right” argument either, but I don’t understand most of what happens in the world and there’s no sense trying to work this sort of thing out).   Adebayor is probably not blameless, but he is also presumably being booed by people who don’t have the greatest grasp of how football works, and who, if Arsene Wenger had a come up with a better centre-back pairing and not lost Flamini to Milan, would be more than happy with what he’s doing on the pitch.

I appreciate that I overthink these things, that football has always been a primal release from the ridiculousness of the modern world, but there’s a part of me that hates all this negativity.   To me football’s a game, to be enjoyed.  It doesn’t always feel that way (not when you’re being stuffed 3-0 at home by Arsenal and Adebayor has scored two of them with thoroughly unopposed headers) but part of the joy of sport is surely that it really doesn’t matter?    It’s great for us to ponder and to discuss, but when we’re booing someone for allegedly “not trying”, or for allegedly thinking about joining another club, well, come on.    Arsenal have one of the best teams in one of the best leagues, with one of the best managers in a stadium that’s not to my liking but that’s pretty good by modern standards.   “Don’t worry, be happy”, etc.  “Always look on the bright side of life”, etc.

Counting chickens

Here are the other Europe qualifiers… we’d be third round qualifying… Gothenberg would be fun.

Then Ajax, eh?  Guingamp is a small French village near to Toby’s mum’s house, so that’d be good…

We can dream.  We may not be dreaming for much longer.

Jamie’s report: Newcastle 0-1 Fulham

A magnificent result for Roy Hodgson’s whites, away from home and in the most difficult circumstances. This felt like a real coming of age for a side that has truly blossomed in the final third of the season and now finds itself on the brink of European qualification and Fulham’s highest ever league finish.

The players were impressively confident and assured throughout, dominating possession from the off and calming the 50,000 ‘best fans in the world’ (copyright Sky) who filled St James’ Park into nervous silence. In fact, our passing was probably not at its best, with Murphy and Etuhu both giving it away more than usual and Gera still struggling for form. The fact that we prevailed despite this is perhaps testament to how far the side has come.

Hangeland was his usual commanding self whilst Hughes, as always, did a fine job alongside him. Dempsey was as committed and industrious as ever and the front pairing of Kamara and Nevland were again lively, until the latter ran out of steam in the second half. Pantsil, surely the biggest and most pleasant surprise of the season, was a joy to watch: faultless in defence and vibrant, almost arrogant, in possession. This clearly is a player relishing his vital role in a successful team and loving the adoration of the fans that has come with it. At one point in the middle of the second half, after cleverly dummying to win a goal kick (a Pantsman trademark, that) he even broke out of game-mode to stop and applaud those who, high in the upper echelons of one corner of the ground, were delightedly singing his name.

In the entire contest Newcastle got behind our defence once. It was fifteen minutes into the game – Martins playing a clever one-two with Viduka and striking the near post from a difficult angle. Meanwhile at the other end, Nevland curled an effort just wide after a clever flick from Kamara had given him the opportunity to shoot. Then, all of a sudden, Nevland was set clear on the right by Murphy; bearing down on Harper he unselfishly squared to Kamara, who lashed the ball high into the net to make it 1-0. Joy in our lofty corner!

Our worst spell was at the beginning of the second half when we fell too deep – Etuhu was forced to clear off the line and Viduka was perhaps unfortunate to have a headed goal disallowed. But then the hosts shot themselves in the foot when Bassong found himself on the wrong side of Kamara and finally succeeded, after about three attempts, to illegally bring him to ground. A deserved red-card was the result.

From then on Fulham were more or less in control. Schwarzer needed to save well from the unpredictable Martins and then again late on from Butt’s toe-poked volley, but we equally had opportunities to put Newcastle out of their misery and if anything were not clinical enough on the break. Dempsey put perhaps the best chance over the bar.

No matter – the final whistle soon blew and we could celebrate a highly impressive victory, safe in the knowledge that European qualification was still in our hands with only a point needed on the final day. Better still, word soon spread of other results, which meant that only a Spurs victory at Anfield could deny us. The stage is set for a fantastic celebration at the Cottage next Sunday…

Newcastle 0-1 Fulham

Out west so nothing from me today, but Jamie was there and enjoyed a cracking afternoon by the sounds of things. Check back tomorrow for his report, or leave your own thoughts below.

What a result though, eh? Great saves from Schwarzer, great work from Clint, Murphy and Nevland in the buildup to Kamara’s goal, and how about that goal-line clearance from Dickson? Nice one.

Bob Zamora interview and new Times bit up from me

At Soccerlens.

“The goals haven’t been coming but, I mean, it’s sort of a different role I have to play really – it’s not all-out attack. When I haven’t got the ball, I’m sitting on the holding centre-midfielder and defending.

“I’m not making excuses but every other part of my game has been good, you know: holding the ball up, bringing people into play, and I think somebody said a stat to me the other day that I was up there in terms of creating chances for other people. If I’m not scoring, I’m setting someone else up or setting someone up for a shot.

“That’s good enough for me and as long as we win, I couldn’t care if it’s one-nil and [Mark] Schwarzer scores from a goal kick. I really couldn’t care. As long as we win and stay in this division, that’s my main goal.”

“For myself, as a striker, you’re thought to be scoring goals and doing all of that and attacking but I find the way the gaffer wants it, we’re also doing a hell of a lot of defending and working hard and I think that shows in our team performances.”

All true.  I still don’t think any of us can really work out how important he’s been to the team this year.

I’ve just written a longer article on the subject, and have bunged it up on The Times site.   It’s not anything new in terms of the thrust of my argument, and lord knows the last thing we need is more Zamora discussion, but hey, the world is weird like that so I’ve posted it anyway.

Friday stuff

The Guardian press office has been in touch:

I’d like to alert you to a series of football supplements, which will be included in the Guardian and Observer newspapers for seven days, starting this Saturday (16 May). The series is called ‘Foul Play: The Seven Deadly Sins of Football’, with each supplement featuring sinful-tales of footballing misdemeanours.

The supplements have been put together by a team of the Guardian and Observer’s award-winning sports writers, who have scratched beneath the shiny veneer of the modern Premier League era and discovered that the beautiful game has a secret history of the odd, the unexpected and the downright shady.

Sounds like a fun idea.   The content will be in the papers and here as of tomorrow.  The schedule is:

16 May – Greed featuring David Beckham and Ashley Cole
17 May – Pride featuring Andrei Arshavin and Mike Ashley
18 May – Wrath featuring Craig Bellamy and Roy Keane
19 May – Envy featuring Bruce Grobbelaar and Danielle Lloyd
20 May – Gluttony featuring Mark Bosnich and Gazza
21 May – Sloth featuring John Terry and Ian Rush
22 May – Lust featuring David Mellor and Robinho

So there we are.

Back to business.  Roy’s video is up.  Sub four minutes again.  There’s probably not much to say.  I know the feeling.  Four forwards to choose from.   Has to be Kamara and Nevland surely?   They’ve waited all year, done well, and deserve to play out the season.

Egan Richardson caught up with Wayne Brown.   Cheers, Egan.

Most unusual link to this site ever came from here.

Rare political link.  Unite against fascism were handing out leaflets by the tube today; good on them.   With the way politics is exploding here anything seems possible.  The BNP has been waiting for a time like this; it must not be allowed to sneak even close to a position of influence.

Steps off high horse nervously.

Anyway, yes, football.  Here’s to an intriguing game in the North East.  And of course we’ll be in yellow.

Junk stat

Since 2004/05, we have averaged 1.27 points per game in the 44 matches following a midweek match.

In the same period we have averaged 1.15 points per game overall.

This is no way to guage the possible effects of playing in Europe next year – far too many flaws in the logic for that – but I thought I’d check to see if anything striking came out of it.  Nope.

Le weekend

The season’s almost worked out now.  United are going to win the league, Liverpool are going to kick themselves at opportunities missed, Chelsea are beyond description and Arsenal are going to finish in a creditable but disappointing fourth place, requiring them to go out and buy a centre-back.  Hmmm.

At the other end there are few games left for Great Escapes.  West Brom started their charge a week too late; Hull City are doomed (either now or next year), and Sunderland are metaphorically soiling themselves.  All three of these clubs could go down.

They are joined in the brown stuff by Middlesbrough and Newcastle, who played each other in a six pointer extraordinaire on Monday night.   Accompanied by Daniel from With A Plum (in the country for a week), I made my way to Waterloo and the Stage Door pub to see what was going on with these two.  It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a game that doesn’t include Fulham, and with Newcastle next up for us it seemed a sensible scouting mission to undertake.

The pub was rammed and loud: the speakers were numerous and set to 11.  Add to this the modern football phenomenon of miking up everything that moves and it was a real sensory overload occasion.  Every kick met with a loud Rocky Balboa style THUD!!!; the home crowd felt like a swarm of flies about a foot from my ear; the fans in the pub shouted their futile but thrilling encouragement; Craig Burley in the commentary box scowled with deep Scottish football certainty, the type of certainty that can only come from a Scottish commentator. 

The pub blew up when Boro scored early, every man leapt to his feet and screamed.  There was silence when Taylor buried that wonderful headed equaliser, and later resignation when Martins and then Lovenkrands supplied the knockout blows.  Boro look doomed; Newcastle look like they’ve found something.

The worry for me is Mark Viduka.  It seems to me that this most tricky of players is vital to Newcastle’s survival hopes.  He’s hard to pin down, can work in the hole, in midfield, or right up front, as well as drifting wide to open up gaps for others or whip in a cross.  He has previous against us:

 

Both games were won by Viduka, more or less.

The mitigating circumstance is that we’re not Middlesbrough, we can defend.  Boro are many things but watertight is not one of them, and while Newcastle showed renewed gumption, much of this may be because they were playing a thoroughly hapless opponent, a team that (apparently) hadn’t scored away from home for months before this match.  So really, Boro were there for the taking and were taken.  Fulham will be much, much tougher for Newcastle to break down.  I’m optimistic.

Ask Bobby

Have you a question for Bobby Zamora?  Well perhaps you can get it asked.   Jonathan at Just-football.com is going along to Under Armour’s boot launch, where Mr Zamora will be present.

I have to be careful how I phrase this… but… well… I suppose the question is whether he’s been wearing them all year…

The above look like adidas to me.

But:

These are clearly Under Armour.

As are these.

And these.

So…

Commerce

Speaking of greasing the wheels of commerce, if any of you like poker please visit the excellent pokerlistings.com.

Their advert is up for renewal in June so do feel free to click on the link.   I could do with them extending the ad for another few months…

Fourth toughest in the infants

Dave has published the league table for London games.   A creditable showing from us, I feel.

I’m inspired.  Here are some other tables, courtesy of football365:

The league table for games played against the top half (we’re 6th in this)

Same for games played against the bottom half (13th)

I’m not sure what this means really.  We’ve average more points per game against the bottom half (1.5) than against the top half (1.2), but I suppose we do better than might be expected against good teams.    This is all part of the giant filing cabinet in the sky with “Swings and roundabouts” written on it.  We’ve lost twice to Hull; Arsenal couldn’t score against us.  (shrug)

On we go:

The home table (technically we’re joint third)

And the away one (14th)

Record in the first half (6th)

Record in the second half (14th).

And attendance.  There’s a bug in this, as they have our capacity wrong.  We’d be about 10th or so.  Interesting to note that an average of 72 people per game fail to turn up at Arsenal games (we’re led to believe that getting a ticket is impossible, so I have subtracted the ‘average’ from the ‘high’ not the capacity – now I think about it that might be away fans.  Still..)

None of which tells you anything in particular.

Looking for Eric

In these troubled times we must all do what we can to grease the wheels of British Industry.  To whit: Looking for Eric, which is being publicised by a Fulham s/t holder so gets a plug here.

Synopsis:

Eric the postman is slipping through his own fingers…

His chaotic family, his wild stepsons, and the cement mixer in the front garden don’t help, but it is Eric’s own secret that drives him to the brink.  Can he face Lily, the woman he once loved?  Despite outrageous efforts and misplaced goodwill from his football fan mates, Eric continues to sink.

In desperate times it takes a spliff and a special friend to challenge Eric to journey into the most perilous territory of all – the past.

As a certain Frenchman says, “He who is afraid to throw the dice, will never throw a six.”

Release date: 12 June

Running time: 116 minutes

Certificate: 15

Official site: http://www.lookingforericmovie.co.uk/

Wayne Brown: dominating Finland

Well perhaps that’s an exaggeration, but he scored again the other day.  And set one up.   So the loan appears to be turning out fairly positively. 

I’m still curious about the move, whether it’s a mind-broadening exercise or what, but hopefully by now the players would eat their socks if Roy told them it would improve their game. 

He’s done such a good job bringing players on:  it must be fantastic for players already at the club, and intriguing for players who might come to the club in the future.   I’m sure we can all think of jobs where our colleagues or boss makes us feel and work really well, and other jobs where we feel completely useless.  Roy seems to make players better at being footballers.   Given that “underachiever” is one of the game’s more common labels these days, it’s great that our squad is heavily leaning the other way.    And that’s down to Hodgson.  And the players.  But probably mainly Hodgson.

Thanks to Egan for the tip-off.  He interviewed Brown recently and will post that soon.   I’ll let you know…

Chalkin’ it up

Below I noted Ashley Young’s performance, and superficially, it seemed impressive.  And maybe it was.   He passed the ball 27 times and gave it away 16 of them, which seems bad, but there’s an awful lot of passing right into the heart of the box there.    On balance, you have to say that we did a fine job of containing him, but on another day some of those passes could’ve found a man.

Meanwhile, look at Paul Konchesky.  A decent raiding performance I thought, especially in the first half.  Some of those crosses are corners, but still, he was a constant menace and Young’s switch in the second half may have been partly aimed at stopping him.   Probably not, but hey, we’re a good team now, opponents have to think of these things…

Fulham 3-1 Villa

That’s what it’s all about.  When Roy Hodgson built this team he must have had days like today in mind.  The team clicked perfectly, and outplayed a good Villa side from first to last.  Fantastic, just fantastic.

Fulham started well, attacking in a blur of short passing triangles that tied the Villa defence in knots.  The moves were slick, perhaps teetering on the edge of control, but so, so incisive.  After six minutes one such attack saw Dempsey almost clean through, Kamara inherited the ball and took a tumble, and Danny Murphy was awarded a spot kick.  We don’t have to worry about these, and his kick was typically emphatic, blasted past Brad Friedel with a pleasingly casual precision.

But Villa are made to attack, and threatened to rampage back into the game.  Ashley Young was slashing past defenders with great menace, but we were just about hanging on.  Then from the other flank came a devilish cross that nobody in white could get near and there was Young again to equalise.

The game ebbed and flowed, Fulham still attempting to spin through the defence with clever passing, Villa hurtling back at speed.  Paintsil made some extraordinary tackles in this spell, and emphasised what an important player he has become.  Murphy was having a good day and he knew it, spraying the ball around effortlessly.  Dickson Etuhu behind him had a nervy start but grew into the game and then went on to dominate it.  These two can be frighteningly good when they’re on song.  Clint Dempsey battled away again, and tested Friedel from long range, his left foot drive bringing about a handy stop.

Half time and we wondered if the lost chances would come back to haunt us.  No:  while people were still taking their seats Kamara skipped clear and buried a drive beyond Friedel from the edge of the area.  Soon he had another, Hangeland’s header from a corner being diverted home from close in.  3-1, and we were soaring.

Martin O’Neill took off both full-backs, and reshaped his team.  Milner and Barry notionally took over in defence, and Heskey joined Carew, Agbonlahor and Young up the park.  It looks devastating on paper, but on the pitch it didn’t inconvenience us in the slightest.  Villa, not unsurprisingly, lost their shape; Fulham, not unsurprisingly, stayed calm and played out the duration.    A fine win from an increasingly impressive team.

Roy responds to Jamie Redknapp’s intellectual limitations

This may be entirely made up, but a diamond quote from The Sun today:

ROY HODGSON has slated Jamie Redknapp for attacking Chelsea-Barcelona referee, Tom Henning Ovrebo.

Redknapp said Ovrebo was out of his depth because he was from Norway.

Fulham boss Hodgson, said: “Do people want to go down the Jamie Redknapp route — that only England, Italy and Spain count and everywhere else is no good?”

Chelsea went out of the Champions League with a 1-1 draw, having had four penalty appeals rejected by Ovrebo who has since received death threats.

And TV pundit Redknapp said: “How many big games has he reffed in Norway? I don’t know why we can’t have the best ref from Germany or Italy.

“I don’t think someone from Norway should be reffing a game with the intensity of this one.”

Hodgson, who has worked extensively in Scandanavia, hit back.

He said: “Are we going to say, ‘You’re from Spain, you might be OK but the rest of you, Switzerland, France, Poland, Russia, Austria, Ukraine, Slovenia, Serbia, can go f*** yourselves because you don’t count?’ It’s nonsense.”

He he.

Sky Sports has a less colourful version:

“There’s 60 countries in Europe. Do we say to the other 57: ‘Sorry pal, you’re not Premier League’.

“Norway is good enough. The average crowd in Norway is 15,000 and that’s in a country of four million. We can only average 25,000 in a country of 60 million people.

“What are we going to do in future? Are we going to make certain because the Premier League has loads and loads of money if you are not in England then forget all about it?

“Are we going to say ‘You’re from Spain, you might be just about okay but the rest of you, Switzerland, France, Poland, Russia, Austria, Ukraine, Slovenia, Serbia, you don’t count?’ It’s nonsense.”

Meanwhile, Villa’s John Carew on Brede Hangeland:

“Hangeland has been in the top three or four defenders in the league this season. He is the complete defender.

“He has that strength being so big, he is good in the air, he has good speed, he is one of the best defenders in the league on the ball.

”He has a calmness about him in possession that you almost never see in a defender. He is never stressed, he brings calm to the team.”

14-goal marksman Carew even drew comparisons between Hangeland and former Villa defender Ronny Johnsen during the Norwegian’s prime at Manchester United.

“He is very talented, he’s a university boy, he would have been a doctor or lawyer or something if he had not been a football player,” he added.

“I think he brings that intelligence to the football pitch.

“Hangeland would be as good for me as Ronny Johnsen when he was in his prime at Manchester United.

“Sir Alex Ferguson said Johnsen was the best defender there and that’s when they had Jaap Stam. To get that from him isn’t bad!

“I think Hangeland will be at least as good.”

Yikes.  Buy low, sell high, I guess.

Oh

Another good football blog to have a read through.  Kickette.   Has all sorts of scope to be terrible, but is in fact nothing of the sort.  Have a look.

Roy on video

Quick one this week.

Roy (who may have a sore throat) notes that the players gave Chelsea too much time last week, which is nice because we noted the same thing.

Zamora and Johnson have fitness tests, Konchesky has a knee injury and hasn’t trained all week.

Interesting spot by Dan.  Clint is very open about his aims.  As we know from previous writings, Dempsey is very realistic about the game of football, and is reasonably looking to fashion a decent career for himself while he can.  Who knows what’ll happen.

Anyway, Villa tomorrow.  Could be a cracker.

Respect

If UEFA or the FA or anyone else is serious about respect and fair play then a good start might be to remove Chelsea from next year’s Champions League and award their place to whichever team in Europe has the best fair play record.  Straight into the group stage too, to ensure the team is rewarded to the maximum for behaving itself.  While Chelsea miss out on millions as punishment for their insulting behaviour.  That would send out a message.  Football really only understands money these days; morals are a nice to have.   Make this count.