DJ Barry Hammond

They are in an absolute mess - even if the Palace guy takes over, which clearly won’t be a quick process because he’s got to disinvest from Palace first. I’m also sure that once he gets a proper look at the books he’ll pull out.

Well these gobshites are doing you no favours @Super_horns

I did wonder that myself - but surely not? They have left themselves in a vulnerable position somewhat however.

Who the **** is Dan? 😂

I guess it will depend on who Arsenal sign themselves and whether they need to free up space on their squad registration - and if they do, who they decide to do that with.

I think our season would benefit much more from a dominant win and good performance here. I’m not saying go full strength - but we could do with being able to showcase some attacking play.

Is anyone else getting the impression we’ll see record low points totals at the foot of the table? I’m not suggesting Derby levels of low - rather that it might be possible to stay up with less than 30 points this season? Mean last season Forest were 6 clear on 32 points - with Luton next best on 26.

Bit of a nothing game really. Fulham showed bits, but were by no way as dominant as Spurs. Fulham started brightly, we had riden that spell out and appeared to be growing in the game and then conceded an awful goal from an uncoordinated high press. Grew into the game again from there - without ever looking really threatening except at set pieces - and then Faes scores from a corner - so one positive to take. 2nd half was largely a non-event - and again, uncoordinated press allows Iwobi to run free for 30 odd yards on goal and to slot home. Huffed and puffed after that, but never really threatened to score - fair result in the end, but it was by no means a stellar performance from Fulham. Performance wise, no-one really stood out - maybe Hammers, he was solid yet again, even if he probably feels he could have kept Iwobi’s shot out. Skipp came on - did ok, could be useful, but need to see more. Ayew showed he shouldn’t be allowed to take free kicks. Mav got 20 minutes too - didn’t get much chance to do anything. Ricardo remained on the bench throughout.

Ricardo / Kristiansen - the only adventurous full backs we have. You can’t leave big spaces down the flank next to big Jan - he’d get murdered by Prem standard wingers. See Fulham’s second goal for an example of that.

This will be a huge part of it. I can’t imagine Mav’s the type to impress in training either. I also think Cooper feels playing two out and out wingers and a 10 would be suicide against top teams / away from home.

Ok, potentially stupid question… what formation would you say we’re playing at the moment (or at least in the last two games)?

Might as well get this up, given it’s only days away. Kind of a must win game, what with Villa on the horizon after this one (shudder). That will make the team selection for this one fascinating - who do you go with?

Much more likely he’s joining Fulham I’d say - he’d suit them too.

It’s down to Cooper to decide - but I’d go with either Okoli or Nelson - they’re probably not that much quicker, but are at least a tad more mobile - you’d still need someone dominant in the air however, because we lack that too.

Yes. We could also play attacking fullbacks on both sides too.

I can see why you’d say that because he didn’t track the run - but in fairness to him, the situation had broken down way before it got to that point. I’ve played in and behind enough defences to know your centre half should not be marauding into midfield when there was little danger before that point and leaving your extremely slow centre-half loads of pacey guys and acres of space to cover.

I agree, this is something Cooper probably needs to look at. It’s notable that Cooper’s swapped him and Faes around (Jannik was on the left side last season) and that’s no doubt down to the side he’s playing the attacking fullback - and a clue as to why he’s not used Ricardo as yet. It’s either that or play a back three - and in some ways that could work better?

Justin’s decision to press was questionable when you see what’s behind him - but I do question where the rest of the back 3 were, it wasn’t like it was a quick switch of play. First goal - not sure what Faes is doing pressing up in their half - maybe there was a bit of confidence from us growing in the game at that point that prompted his over aggressive press - but that did leave Jannik and then as a result Justin horribly exposed. Both very poor goals to concede.

Joint top I see - you’ve got to be worried that if Tom keeps this up, people will start noticing the good job he’s doing!

Having a stat for ‘goalkeeper saves’ rather than shots on target isn’t a great idea visually is it.

👀

You should probably enjoy your celebratory mood elsewhere @Super_horns - won’t fit in well around here this evening 😂 Well done on beating the sheep 🐑

Fulham are an average Premier League side - which is a huge level above where we are at this moment in time. Cooper’s not stupid, he’s been in the game long enough to know where our problems lie - the problem for him, they lie across quite a number of areas. Be it having a defender that has good quality but also a horrible lack of pace, a left back that is questionable at this standard, a weakish looking midfield, an aging main striker and questions marks over what your creative outlet is - these are difficult problems to solve all in one go. If I’m Cooper, I’d have been looking at the first set of games up to the international break as a “get what you can out of them” with the ultimate focus of not getting pummelled. That then allows for a bit of regrouping - with all the players that have come in across the window - and hopefully getting to a point where we have less problems within the squad to deal with.

The annoying thing has to be both goals coming from transitions whilst we were high up the pitch. Need to work on our transition play too - with both forwards dropping to form the block, we don’t have any immediate threat going the other way and that leads to us getting bogged down in possession when we do win it back. Winks seemed starved of the ball in good areas today too… my solution would have been to push him forward and have Ndidi and Skipp shield the back four. One other obvious thing - as good as Jannik is as a defender, I think we’re compensating for his horrific lack of pace too much. It’s a factor that will restrict our willingness bring the back line up and to press high.

Oh… it abruptly stopped - I think I’m disappointed, even if it was horrific