Fulham H Post Match Thread

[HighPeakFox]

I wasn't reminded of Bournemouth last night - it had far more in common with Norwich at home, where we looked tired and disjointed and were frankly lucky not to lose.

[StanSP]

Just now, Rigga said:

Rodgers moans he has no defenders then picks 5 instead of 4.

 

Where/when did he say he had no defenders?

 

1 minute ago, Rigga said:

He says we had a young team out...we had 4 players over 30

 

And some of the other 10 that played? What were their ages? I'll give you some help - Justin (22), Fofana (19), Youri (23), Maddison (24), Kelechi (24), Barnes (22), Under (23), Thomas (19).

It's funny because when we're playing well, we're all raving about the potential of the squad and what's to come. When we've lost (badly, admittedly), the ages seem to get overlooked and the seemingly inexperienced players suddenly get hounded because they're not at world class level despite their age. 

 

4 minutes ago, Rigga said:

he said we had tired players..Barnes isn’t getting tired by sitting in the bench the past two games..

 

And what of other players that have played a lot of games in all competitions relentlessly, for club and country? Evans plays 3 international games after only just coming back from injury. Youri has played non-stop barring first half against Braga. We've had to rely on older players because of injuries to key players. It's no wonder we have a tired squad and Rodgers is well within his rights to bring up the tiredness levels of them considering the schedule they've had to play on. All well and good picking out Barnes not being tired because he started on the bench but what of other players?

 

6 minutes ago, Rigga said:

he just can not motivate this bunch it seems.. we don’t press any

more , we are happy to let the opposition have the ball and pass through us at ease.. we don’t create like we used to.

This motivation point is utter bollocks.

We would not be 4th in the league and top of our EL group if the motivation wasn't there. You can blame many things - personnel, formation, tactics etc - but the motivation of the squad can't be questioned, especially with some of the results we've had against different kinds of opposition this season. 

[SuperMike]

Mendy in midfield against an athletic 7 footer was just one example of us being physically bullied, by bigger players, all over the pitch. This is gonna happen in almost EVERY remaining game. The only way to combat it is through speed, flair and accurate passing......

.....and, actually, we do have players capable of doing this - but for some reason they are well and truly stifled at the moment.

[1972 Fox]

15 hours ago, Crocyfox79 said:

****ing bastard crap evans a liability Fuchs past it vardy couldn’t be arsed mendy abject if I was top and the king power board I would be pulling senor rodgers to one side and say anymore of this shit ur gone lose on Thursday to zorya I’d be questioning Rodgers ability embarrassing 

[sacreblueits442]

7 hours ago, Reg Vardy said:

I was critical last night, and we did do some schoolboy stuff.....that can't be denied

 

But on reflection......if we score when we hit post and crossbar, the game changes, and Fulham need to go from 5 at the back, 4 in midfield strung across the pitch, that we really struggled to break down, to create attacking threat....as it was as soon as they went in front, they sat back, and they did it really well, and we were unable to break them down.....bad day at the office......

...if I recall, they were originally not sitting that deep and there was space for Vardy to run in behind, we were just incapable of playing a pass correctly to get him in!!!

  They were defensive but were even better on the offence, as they knew exactly how to get at our defence and we struggled to contain them as they broke in numbers.

  Had we scored I suggest they would not have changed and continue to maintain the plan they came with. It was early enough in the game, that they had the time to get themselves back in the match without throwing the kitchen sink at us.Once they had scored, they continued how they had started and even when they were two up, they continued to press us and Kaspers' save stopped it from being three. It was only after half time that they decided to drop deeper when we changed personnel and formation, and they just looked to counter.

[Rigga]

26 minutes ago, StanSP said:

Where/when did he say he had no defenders?

 

And some of the other 10 that played? What were their ages? I'll give you some help - Justin (22), Fofana (19), Youri (23), Maddison (24), Kelechi (24), Barnes (22), Under (23), Thomas (19).

It's funny because when we're playing well, we're all raving about the potential of the squad and what's to come. When we've lost (badly, admittedly), the ages seem to get overlooked and the seemingly inexperienced players suddenly get hounded because they're not at world class level despite their age. 

 

And what of other players that have played a lot of games in all competitions relentlessly, for club and country? Evans plays 3 international games after only just coming back from injury. Youri has played non-stop barring first half against Braga. We've had to rely on older players because of injuries to key players. It's no wonder we have a tired squad and Rodgers is well within his rights to bring up the tiredness levels of them considering the schedule they've had to play on. All well and good picking out Barnes not being tired because he started on the bench but what of other players?

 

This motivation point is utter bollocks.

We would not be 4th in the league and top of our EL group if the motivation wasn't there. You can blame many things - personnel, formation, tactics etc - but the motivation of the squad can't be questioned, especially with some of the results we've had against different kinds of opposition this season. 

Evening Stan..

 

On the defence...with the players we had out injured , I felt it was a system that would work well for us ...BR words..

 

In youth....you conveniently left Mendy and Praet out..Seasoned campaigners.... As are Youri and Maddison... over 500 games between them.. Not young at all in experience terms..

Is it not BR himself that says the youngsters are progressing well (when we win) but when we lose (they are inexperienced ?) 🤷‍♂️
 

Evans and Youri granted have played plenty of matches.. Evans beyond daft at international level..

JV hasn’t, or Maddison..Barnes...

Wolves picked the same team for 6 months last season... sun/Thursday week in week out... no cries of tiredness there...

 

it’s all about opinions....

villa, West Ham, Fulham last night...all identical no get at em performances...

The ‘ master strokes ‘ of Man City and Arsenal...we were very very fortunate not to be 1-0 down in 10 mins v arsenal..a goal that should have stood..

Man City , we could have been 2 down in half an hour... we took advantage eventually of their awful defending... it has been based on this alone that we have gone with the same formation /tactics since... 2 attack minded players on the pitch in Maddison and vardy...

[foxfan92]

1 hour ago, SuperMike said:

Mendy in midfield against an athletic 7 footer was just one example of us being physically bullied, by bigger players, all over the pitch. This is gonna happen in almost EVERY remaining game. The only way to combat it is through speed, flair and accurate passing......

.....and, actually, we do have players capable of doing this - but for some reason they are well and truly stifled at the moment.

If only we had a taller defensive midfielder coming back from an injury to help out....

[purpleronnie]

I made a point near the start of the season that home advantage won't mean much this season, Our results are testiment to that.  I think the other week it was reported that there has been more away wins than home wins in the premiership this season..

 

 

[StanSP]

5 minutes ago, purpleronnie said:

I made a point near the start of the season that home advantage won't mean much this season, Our results are testiment to that.  I think the other week it was reported that there has been more away wins than home wins in the premiership this season..

 

 

According to this site - https://www.soccerstats.com/homeaway.asp?league=england - it's still true but not by much.

 

[easilee]

Could be worse.....we could be Arsenal supporters.

[CosbehFox]

17 hours ago, HighPeakFox said:

I wasn't reminded of Bournemouth last night - it had far more in common with Norwich at home, where we looked tired and disjointed and were frankly lucky not to lose.

Other similarity was that Norwich home game saw us continue a formation that we were not entirely comfortable with but had worked in the previous game against Villa. 

 

After calming down, it's worth reflecting that such is the run of games currently that there is very little time for Rodgers and his staff to coach. The emphasis is on recovery for example, between Fulham and the Zorya game:-

Monday - Play

Tuesday - Recovery

Wednesday - Travel, session in stadium (won't want to work on shape and give any clues)

Thursday - Play 

 

Braga to Fulham - we'd have probably been able to do proper coaching Saturday at best but equally if we did that probably means the players didn't have a day off last week. 

 

My reluctance to change the formation stems from the lack of opportunity to coach 'shape'. 

[HighPeakFox]

I truly understand why people are so upset and anxious. I'm just very willing to give everyone at the club a wide berth due to the various circumstances. If I thought the formation was the big solution, I'd be all over it. As so often, it is a simple answer to a complex situation. 

 

 

[filbertway]

8 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

I truly understand why people are so upset and anxious. I'm just very willing to give everyone at the club a wide berth due to the various circumstances. If I thought the formation was the big solution, I'd be all over it. As so often, it is a simple answer to a complex situation. 

I honestly don't think it's a coincidence that we played the same set up at home to West Ham and Fulham and saw a similar outcome. We neutered ourselves while also leaving ourselves vulnerable at the back in the West Ham game, then exactly the same thing happened in the Fulham game. I think the issue to me is that it gives the opposition a massive psychological boost to see us set out a team with very few attacking options. I think it probably hits our players mentally as well, they look around and there are very few creative players around.

 

A positive out of losing will hopefully mean that Rodgers will assess our set up and figure out a way we can actually start creating chances against teams we should be beating. I guess we'll see on Thursday or Sunday if he thought 3  centre backs was the issue or not. I hope for our sake that whatever he decides starts to see more impressive performances as we're in danger of that Liverpool game being a turning point again.

[HighPeakFox]

I think he's trying not to change things up until he has more players fit. So I expect the same. 

[messerschmitt]

28 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

I think he's trying not to change things up until he has more players fit. So I expect the same. 

I can see the logic in that but what I don't understand is you can still pass the ball around quickly and be agressive with 5 at the back. You could see after about ten minutes that we were so slow moving the ball about and it wasn't going to end well so why, didn't he get the message out to do something about it after ten minutes.

[HighPeakFox]

2 hours ago, messerschmitt said:

I can see the logic in that but what I don't understand is you can still pass the ball around quickly and be agressive with 5 at the back. You could see after about ten minutes that we were so slow moving the ball about and it wasn't going to end well so why, didn't he get the message out to do something about it after ten minutes.

I agree about the aggressive movement of the ball, which is the issue rather than the formation. 

 

As to the other point, I would imagine that management has to take care not to destroy confidence by not making snap decisions after 10 minutes, obvious though it looks to you or me. Some might thing that's him being arrogant and egotistical, but I don't buy that. 

[messerschmitt]

Yes I can see the not destroying confidence,  but he said after the match that we didn't move the ball quick enough, hopefully he spotted it before you or I.

I'd heard that Tielemans was his general on the pitch, I'd have thought that he could have got a message over to him to get the players to zip it around quicker.

 

I really rate Rodgers and have since I saw a program on him at Swansea but somethings really puzzle me. The slow movement of the ball leads to the only options being to pass it along the back three and back again. There were a few times when Evans even stopped at just stood with the ball. I know Brendans not the type to bawl the players out but with his attention to detail you'd think he would be more upset about it not being followed and be more frustrated than just taking notes.

[HighPeakFox]

1 minute ago, messerschmitt said:

Yes I can see the not destroying confidence,  but he said after the match that we didn't move the ball quick enough, hopefully he spotted it before you or I.

I'd heard that Tielemans was his general on the pitch, I'd have thought that he could have got a message over to him to get the players to zip it around quicker.

 

I really rate Rodgers and have since I saw a program on him at Swansea but somethings really puzzle me. The slow movement of the ball leads to the only options being to pass it along the back three and back again. There were a few times when Evans even stopped at just stood with the ball. I know Brendans not the type to bawl the players out but with his attention to detail you'd think he would be more upset about it not being followed and be more frustrated than just taking notes.

I think they're just knackered mate. So pleased that a few of them have been spared the trip to the Ukraine.

[whoareyaaa]

3 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

I think they're just knackered mate. So pleased that a few of them have been spared the trip to the Ukraine.

playing 3atb is just not going to work every game we need a more attacking formation don't you think?

[messerschmitt]

7 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

I think they're just knackered mate. So pleased that a few of them have been spared the trip to the Ukraine.

Hope thats all it is.

[HighPeakFox]

43 minutes ago, whoareyaaa said:

playing 3atb is just not going to work every game we need a more attacking formation don't you think?

I'm not sure how many times I am going to have to to put my point of view about this. I think that the players are tired, a bit off form and regardless of formation would have lost the other night. Having said that, I make no claim to be an expert on formations (unlike so many on here who confidently claim to know why things go wrong), but we'd have misplaced passes, failed to press and misdefended too playing 442, 433 or 451. The injured players have forced us to use the back ups, they've tired (and probably have some niggles too) and rhythm has been lost.

 

Bottom line is - if the players play badly, they lose. That bit is simple. When you pick Maddison, Tielemans and Praet and they all have stinkers (I slightly excuse Praet because the poor fella never got passed to) then you're going to struggle. Fofana is now through the new-boy bounce and is showing some naivete. Fulham, to give them credit, looked semi-decent, and having watched them a couple of times recently, it had been coming, so I wasn't totally shocked. 

 

It's a weird season, as evidenced by lots of freak results so far, and I think it's likely to continue. If we can get all the main players back fit and starting, then I expect BR will tweak the team more - my take on it (and from what he's said) is that with reduced personnel, he doesn't want to mess about with it right now, and I can see why he's done that.

 

I saw that @Manwell Pablo and @moore_94 tried very hard to make some of these points a few hours ago, for which gratitude.

Edited 2 December 2020 by HighPeakFox

[Stuntman_Mike]

18 hours ago, easilee said:

Could be worse.....we could be Arsenal supporters.

I'd sooner be current FA Cup holders 

 

 

[Sunbury Fox]

As has been said in other threads, it was not the formation per se that was the problem on Monday, it was the personnel deployed in that formation. 

 

The formation was meant to be 3421. With different personnel that could actually be very attacking. Imagine a midfield 4 of Ric, Youri, Wilf and Timmy, with Barnes and Ünder supporting Vardy as inverted wingers. That is so much different to what we actually saw, which was 2 CMs playing as inverted wingers and 2 young, inexperienced full backs who currently don't have the skill set to take the main responsibility to create and start off attacks from wide.

 

A further complication was that 2 of our 3 CBs lacked any pace meaning that they were horribly exposed when the full backs pushed so high.

[worthosoriginals]

20 hours ago, easilee said:

Could be worse.....we could be Arsenal supporters.

Some of our lot sound like them entitled brats.