BFTG - Fulham

[Millsy]

Ok so we played shit and got stuffed, so what.

Stam had taken us to an unbelievable 3rd in the table and we were missing Moore and still don't have a striker and Fulham used tactics that worked on us.

I suspect we'll learn from all this and our next run will be even more impressive.

I think the worry we all have niggling in the backs of our minds is has it all been fake up until now and will the team implode like we did last year especially now with the ownership malarkey too unsettling everyone like the Clarke-Fulham talks did.

I doubt it, but who knows.

[OLLIE KEARNS]

Complete and utter shambles of a performance including the manager. Finally a team put a well organised high press on us right from the start and we couldn't deal with it. Got completely battered for the first 15 minutes at which point any decent manager would have changed shape to calm the game down a bit. Dropping Evans in and going to 3 centre backs would have got Obita and Gunter back to being wing backs to stop their full backs bombing forward. Go two up front and just turn their back four for 10 minutes and the dynamics of the game change. What he actually did was stood and watched the inevitable unfold.
Everyone was awful but Beerens is an absolute liability when we're not on top in a game. The Fulham right back constantly overlapped against Obita with Beerens watching from afar.
Apart from all that, good day out in Putney as always

[RG7Fan]

Complete and utter shambles of a performance including the manager. Finally a team put a well organised high press on us right from the start and we couldn't deal with it. Got completely battered for the first 15 minutes at which point any decent manager would have changed shape to calm the game down a bit. Dropping Evans in and going to 3 centre backs would have got Obita and Gunter back to being wing backs to stop their full backs bombing forward. Go two up front and just turn their back four for 10 minutes and the dynamics of the game change. What he actually did was stood and watched the inevitable unfold.
Everyone was awful but Beerens is an absolute liability when we're not on top in a game. The Fulham right back constantly overlapped against Obita with Beerens watching from afar.
Apart from all that, good day out in Putney as always

Have calmed down a bit now and can comment, but this post is the story of the day. Obita was outclassed, and with Beerens missing in action their right back was doing what we really need Gunter to do. Everyone was poor really - they just seemed to run through us all the time. Some good saves from AlHabsi but WTF are all the short goal kicks about? And, when we did have an opportunity (at 2-0 / 3-0 down) to get a fast ball out he just stood there looking around. Where's the urgency, the counter attack? FFS you were 2/3 down not 2/3 up!!

Very disappointing - I hope they got a massive bollocking at half time and after the match. If I was a Chinese (would be) investor and saw that today I'd be laughing all the way back to Hull ...

[tidus_mi2]

Dellor asking on Twitter when the last time a team in third place in any league lost 5-0 or greater.

4 games ago, Fulham 5-0 Huddersfield.

Short memory there Tim.

[genome]

For some reason I can't stop laughing at how pixellated his profile picture is on Twitter.

[Lower West]

Al Habsi was Reading MOTM - after a 5-0 drubbing!

MOM? That clearance in the first few minutes was truly awful. Not to mention the clearances of out hand straight into touch in the second half.

No player deserves the accolade after such a poor team performance.

.

[Lower West]

Ok so we played shit and got stuffed, so what.

Shows how fragile we are. Going to be an up and down season. Stam and the management team has some work to do next summer.

[3points]

Liam Kelly was a bright spark when he came in and McShane did OK. Other than that poor all round, with Beerens the stand out worse player. Joey and Evans can't play in the same midfield together either. Difficult selection in midfield next week for Stam with Williams suspended.

[RG7Fan]

Liam Kelly was a bright spark when he came in and McShane did OK. Other than that poor all round, with Beerens the stand out worse player. Joey and Evans can't play in the same midfield together either. Difficult selection in midfield next week for Stam with Williams suspended.

It must have been bad - 3points cant even acknowledge he was with me at the game ...

Agree that Kelly was a bright spark. 100% for effort that's for sure.

[Lower West]

McShane did OK.

Doubt Stam was impressed with his Captain picking up a booking in the first two minutes of a game for dissent.

[Royal Ginger]

McShane did OK.

Doubt Stam was impressed with his Captain picking up a booking in the first two minutes of a game for dissent.

Agree with 3 points. Everything after the capitulation is meaningless, but McShane kept us in it in the first half.

Fulham were just fitter, faster and stronger, that was about it. We couldn't pass. They were totally on top of everything. Fulham have full bragging rights on the pitch, beat our boys in every department.

Beerens utter lack of pace is a concern.

Pie was bloody awful and queues were horrifically slow.

[Lower West]

McShane did OK.

Doubt Stam was impressed with his Captain picking up a booking in the first two minutes of a game for dissent.

Agree with 3 points. Everything after the capitulation is meaningless, but McShane kept us in it in the first half.

Defending for the second goal was shocking though. Until that point we were still in the game. The team has struggled to produce for 90 minutes this season. Even when we've had good 1st halves. Hopefully January will add some mental steel and wise heads to the team. As that's what the younger less experienced players need around them.

[Half Biscuit]

Think I'm right in saying this is our worst league result in at least 15 years?
It's frustrating, but just think how many teams we have beaten by similar scores during that time.
Puts things in perspective.
And though the ownership situation will again halt momentum (maddeningly), we're still doing better than anyone could have imagined this time last year.

[marlowuk]

.... McShane kept us in it in the first half.

Fulham were just fitter, faster and stronger, that was about it.

That's 'head-in-the-sand' comment. We were never in it in the first half!! Being 1-0 down at HT flattered us!!

Fulham were not 'just fitter, faster and stronger'. They were more skillful, more organised and more committed. They played the sort of football that we have been trying to play but at a far higher level than we have reached - ever!! We were so out-classed it was embarrassing. They ran at our defence and cut through it like a knife through butter time and time again. We missed Swift and Moore of course but I do not think the result would have been much different if they had been playing.

[Jackson Corner]

Not surprised we have been riding our luck for the last few weeks. First decent team we play and they make us look a pub team. Watch the wheels come off now in December and a rapid drop down the table.............

[East Grinstead Royal]

If you were in the first 15 rows in P6 and left the game with 25 minutes to go, you may have received the benefit of my opinion. Something along the lines of, "Fairweather fans! You all turn up when things are going well and then turn your back the moment it goes wrong! You're not supporters! You should be ashamed! True supporters follow their team through thick and thin." All of which is true... but the OP my Genome pretty much sums up the team's performance.

[tidus_mi2]

If you were in the first 15 rows in P6 and left the game with 25 minutes to go, you may have received the benefit of my opinion. Something along the lines of, "Fairweather fans! You all turn up when things are going well and then turn your back the moment it goes wrong! You're not supporters! You should be ashamed! True supporters follow their team through thick and thin." All of which is true... but the OP my Genome pretty much sums up the team's performance.

They paid money and travelled to watch that game, who the oxf*rd are you to tell people how they should and shouldn't support their club, 25 minutes to go the game was over as a contest. Every fan has value whether they leave early or stay to the end, whether they sit down or stand up, whether they go every game, or sit at home and listen on the radio.

[Steve_Upper_West]

If you were in the first 15 rows in P6 and left the game with 25 minutes to go, you may have received the benefit of my opinion. Something along the lines of, "Fairweather fans! You all turn up when things are going well and then turn your back the moment it goes wrong! You're not supporters! You should be ashamed! True supporters follow their team through thick and thin." All of which is true... but the OP my Genome pretty much sums up the team's performance.

They paid money and travelled to watch that game, who the oxf*rd are you to tell people how they should and shouldn't support their club, 25 minutes to go the game was over as a contest. Every fan has value whether they leave early or stay to the end, whether they sit down or stand up, whether they go every game, or sit at home and listen on the radio.

+ 1

[paultheroyal]

If you were in the first 15 rows in P6 and left the game with 25 minutes to go, you may have received the benefit of my opinion. Something along the lines of, "Fairweather fans! You all turn up when things are going well and then turn your back the moment it goes wrong! You're not supporters! You should be ashamed! True supporters follow their team through thick and thin." All of which is true... but the OP my Genome pretty much sums up the team's performance.

They paid money and travelled to watch that game, who the oxf*rd are you to tell people how they should and shouldn't support their club, 25 minutes to go the game was over as a contest. Every fan has value whether they leave early or stay to the end, whether they sit down or stand up, whether they go every game, or sit at home and listen on the radio.

Absolutely spot on. Posters like East Grinstead are the worst kind. True supporters comment, oxf*rd me!

I spent best part of £80 yesterday and gave up afternoon with my kids. When you can see quite clearly there is no comeback I have no probs leaving early and got home by 6:30pm to rescue rest of the day.

Players were shit and understand they hardly acknowledged fans at the end... are they true players then?

[paultheroyal]

Anyway... after that rant...

I do think that game will now set the tone for rest of the season. Stam needs and alternative way of playing in situations like that because most now will really press high.

Did not help that there were so many underperforming players...

Beerens, obita, Blackett, Van den Berg... actually pretty much everyone were just awful. Chance to put it right on Saturday.