It's all a big con

[MJG]

I have refrained from commenting on Saturday's game because I just didn't want to be just another pallbearer.   It was one of those games which happens in football no matter what team you are, who your manager is, or whereabouts you are in the mix.  What can go wrong will go wrong.  For sixty minutes we could count ourselves to be unfortunate not to be on level terms at least, but chances went begging, and we did a lot of bad things in midfield.  Scott Parker was lucky not to be red carded, but, having said that, three City tackles in the opening forty five merited at least yellow cards but got nought.  City's opener brilliantly taken by Abraham (some loan signing by City I have to say) was a result of a very casual Fulham midfield pass with Sessegnon's flank exposed.  Fulham look dogged and were still in the match until City's second this time from poor defending and zilch closing down.  After that it just went downhill.

Although it doesn't look very bright right now, and, post match, SJ suggested he needs to do what he did pre-season which may mean playing around with different formations and players, the plus points before it fell apart were all good; Martin showed neat touches and good interchanges with team mates, although he missed another header; the defence looked sound apart from the opening goal perhaps missing Kalas but looking stronger on the right with Odoi less exposed;  Johansen shows a lot of skill and promise and I like the look of him; Aluko played well without much luck; Kebano also looked good showing excellent movement and exchanges with team mates.  And so it was a 4-0 drubbing which happened but shouldn't have happened.   If we can bounce back from that and show character then a rather fancy our season will be back of track by the end of next month.

I want to believe Khan owns a football club because he wants football at Craven Cottage and the only way that is going to happen is if Fulham are successful.  I am not going to countenance anything else until it is inevitable to do so.   We have been in despair as a Club before and we beat it.  This season is nowhere near that and so I will still be attending fun parties rather than defeatist funerals.

one of the best posts I have  read here or elsewhere following Saturday.

[dhowells21]

I have refrained from commenting on Saturday's game because I just didn't want to be just another pallbearer.   It was one of those games which happens in football no matter what team you are, who your manager is, or whereabouts you are in the mix.  What can go wrong will go wrong.  For sixty minutes we could count ourselves to be unfortunate not to be on level terms at least, but chances went begging, and we did a lot of bad things in midfield.  Scott Parker was lucky not to be red carded, but, having said that, three City tackles in the opening forty five merited at least yellow cards but got nought.  City's opener brilliantly taken by Abraham (some loan signing by City I have to say) was a result of a very casual Fulham midfield pass with Sessegnon's flank exposed.  Fulham look dogged and were still in the match until City's second this time from poor defending and zilch closing down.  After that it just went downhill.

Although it doesn't look very bright right now, and, post match, SJ suggested he needs to do what he did pre-season which may mean playing around with different formations and players, the plus points before it fell apart were all good; Martin showed neat touches and good interchanges with team mates, although he missed another header; the defence looked sound apart from the opening goal perhaps missing Kalas but looking stronger on the right with Odoi less exposed;  Johansen shows a lot of skill and promise and I like the look of him; Aluko played well without much luck; Kebano also looked good showing excellent movement and exchanges with team mates.  And so it was a 4-0 drubbing which happened but shouldn't have happened.   If we can bounce back from that and show character then a rather fancy our season will be back of track by the end of next month.

I want to believe Khan owns a football club because he wants football at Craven Cottage and the only way that is going to happen is if Fulham are successful.  I am not going to countenance anything else until it is inevitable to do so.   We have been in despair as a Club before and we beat it.  This season is nowhere near that and so I will still be attending fun parties rather than defeatist funerals.

one of the best posts I have  read here or elsewhere following Saturday.

Yeah, I'll happily agree with that statement.

Although, naturally does lack a little bit of the irrational crazy we all seem to love and crave.

Good post.  :plus one:

[Carborundum]

Toshes Mate's perspective chimes with me.

At the start of the season this league had around eighteen teams set for a top six finish and the remainder expecting a season of consolidation.  Yet at any point in the season every place in the table will be filled by one team.  Happens every season.

That is the joy of the championship.  The sheer raw intensity of seeing highly skilled, well matched players slug it out game after game after game.  That's what I'm paying for with my season ticket.  That's what I feel entitled to.  Right now I don't feel short changed at all. 

I have a feeling we are going to end up really liking some, perhaps many, of these new players.  Johansen in particular looks like someone we can build around.

[filham]

There is an old saying that a team is only as good as it was in its last game. We have been pretty bad in the last four games and the big problem is in attack where we are not getting into the opponent's last third enough and are not shooting on target.
We, as fans, can only wait and watch to see what the manager does to improve the situation.If the next two games are played in a similar manner to the last four with similar results then surely we will be asking questions abut our coach who up until now has been held in high esteem.

[@jolslover]

I have refrained from commenting on Saturday's game because I just didn't want to be just another pallbearer.   It was one of those games which happens in football no matter what team you are, who your manager is, or whereabouts you are in the mix.  What can go wrong will go wrong.  For sixty minutes we could count ourselves to be unfortunate not to be on level terms at least, but chances went begging, and we did a lot of bad things in midfield.  Scott Parker was lucky not to be red carded, but, having said that, three City tackles in the opening forty five merited at least yellow cards but got nought.  City's opener brilliantly taken by Abraham (some loan signing by City I have to say) was a result of a very casual Fulham midfield pass with Sessegnon's flank exposed.  Fulham look dogged and were still in the match until City's second this time from poor defending and zilch closing down.  After that it just went downhill.

Although it doesn't look very bright right now, and, post match, SJ suggested he needs to do what he did pre-season which may mean playing around with different formations and players, the plus points before it fell apart were all good; Martin showed neat touches and good interchanges with team mates, although he missed another header; the defence looked sound apart from the opening goal perhaps missing Kalas but looking stronger on the right with Odoi less exposed;  Johansen shows a lot of skill and promise and I like the look of him; Aluko played well without much luck; Kebano also looked good showing excellent movement and exchanges with team mates.  And so it was a 4-0 drubbing which happened but shouldn't have happened.   If we can bounce back from that and show character then a rather fancy our season will be back of track by the end of next month.

I want to believe Khan owns a football club because he wants football at Craven Cottage and the only way that is going to happen is if Fulham are successful.  I am not going to countenance anything else until it is inevitable to do so.   We have been in despair as a Club before and we beat it.  This season is nowhere near that and so I will still be attending fun parties rather than defeatist funerals.

Good post mate.

[ToodlesMcToot]

I'm truly surprised that some believe that just because the chairman says the club will do whatever it takes to achieve promotion (we've gotten that every season since our relegation. and what else is he supposed to say?) and we have a run of results at the beginning, that the season will be all peaches and cream thru to May.

We've replaced 18 or 19 players with 14 (I believe). That's a ton of change to begin with and one helluva big expectation that, no matter how good we've done our Summer business, it'll all be gotten right. With that much change and, given the state of the club in previous seasons, the reasonable expectation is true improvement over the course of a full season - top half, for me. That would give us a baseline with Slavisa to build upon. Anything more would be icing on the cake.

Please, please let's not start the emotional roller coaster of last season all over again so soon. It becomes divisive and soon enough we'll be back into bickering camps all over again. The board just sucks when that happens.

We still have players gelling into the team and their new lives in London. Let's give them time to come together and for Slavisa to find the right formula.

We will be much improved over last season and we will finish top half. I have that faith in these players and in Slavisa. If we play our way into more, it'll be wonderful.

When I wrote this post I was still miffed due to the Bristol game so in honesty I was overexaggerating a bit!  fp.gif

Understandable frustration when the kids played a much tighter game in the Cup.

[nose]

familly stuff so couldn't go on saturday BUT
I still happen to think we have a top manager and will be in the mix to go up come the end of the season. I really think we are close to being a brilliant unstoppable team.
on the other hand the owner and his so called board have done their best to sabotage that by not having a full squad for pre season... sabotaging joca's desire to get in better players than we do have... not do everything it takes as promised by the owner and worst of all keeping three very poor executives in ali mac who has overseen our decline without ever doing anything useful to stop it... rigg, what is his purpose and kline who for sure has sabotaged the transfer requests inpre season thru a lunatic approach...  i realise khan's son is here for the duration but i woukld be happier if he looked after anything but transfers and team matters.

until we get a better board we are always likely to be in danger.

but for all that i am otimistic we will turn it round

[Logicalman]

What exactly have you been conned out of?

Buying a Season Ticket?

Would you have bought one no matter what or only because Khan/club said they wanted promotion?

I would have and did. I'm saying it's a bit distasteful to try and make money in that way.

With respect, if you actually believed everything the Owner, Coach, CEO told you at the start of the season, and based your decision-making, or your total understanding of our season-end results on that, I would suggest you have been naive, rather than conned, especially being a Fulham supporter. I don't mean to insult you in that, just a pov that season after season, decade after decade of supporting our great club has pummeled into me as being reality.

I understand what you mean, I just feel that after several average seasons we are due a good one and when it turns out to be same old it feels like a kick in the teeth.

Totally agree with you there. I so want to believe it will get better, but without the signs of it, I have the dread we are in for a long haul back to the top that might even eclipse the previous one!

[AlexW132]

What exactly have you been conned out of?

Buying a Season Ticket?

Would you have bought one no matter what or only because Khan/club said they wanted promotion?

I would have and did. I'm saying it's a bit distasteful to try and make money in that way.

With respect, if you actually believed everything the Owner, Coach, CEO told you at the start of the season, and based your decision-making, or your total understanding of our season-end results on that, I would suggest you have been naive, rather than conned, especially being a Fulham supporter. I don't mean to insult you in that, just a pov that season after season, decade after decade of supporting our great club has pummeled into me as being reality.

I understand what you mean, I just feel that after several average seasons we are due a good one and when it turns out to be same old it feels like a kick in the teeth.

Totally agree with you there. I so want to believe it will get better, but without the signs of it, I have the dread we are in for a long haul back to the top that might even eclipse the previous one!

I've only been a Fulham fan since our relegation season so my on-the-pitch experience of Fulham so far has been almost all negative, bar the QPR thumpings and a couple other games. So when we started this season well I was starting to think I'd had my bad share as a supporter and that we were finally on the up. Now it's taken a turn for the worse I'm starting to feel like I've missed the glory years, and that we're going to slip back into obscurity. Don't get me wrong, I'll still be an FFC supporter through thick and thin even if the above does happen, and I'm sure those who were around before me in the 90s when we were at the lowest of lows will say I've had it relatively easy, and to be honest I don't blame them. I just hope that at some point we take a turn for the better and so will my experience of being a fan of this great club.  049:gif

[Logicalman]

....
I've only been a Fulham fan since our relegation season so my on-the-pitch experience of Fulham so far has been almost all negative, bar the QPR thumpings and a couple other games. So when we started this season well I was starting to think I'd had my bad share as a supporter and that we were finally on the up. Now it's taken a turn for the worse I'm starting to feel like I've missed the glory years, and that we're going to slip back into obscurity. Don't get me wrong, I'll still be an FFC supporter through thick and thin even if the above does happen, and I'm sure those who were around before me in the 90s when we were at the lowest of lows will say I've had it relatively easy, and to be honest I don't blame them. I just hope that at some point we take a turn for the better and so will my experience of being a fan of this great club.  049:gif

I can see where you're coming from. I started supporting in the middle of our previous run in the top flight, and when we dropped, and I mean REALLY dropped, it was like the bottom falling out, but we each kept the faith, and 30+ years later we made it back (thanks MaF). It's a different game now, with different forces acting upon it (TV/Sponsorship money perhaps the greatest) but the one thing that is always the same is the passion of the fans, and their willingness, even in the face of sometimes club absurdity, to stay with their club, most often for life. Welcome to the madhouse, it's gonna be a rollercoaster of a life!