Were you at Boro yesterday?

[Kentish Gent]

If so, what do you make of The Sunday Times match report today, which gives the impression we got away with murder. Sample quotes: "Talk about smash and grab, Middlesborough had ample opportunities for a landslide victory"; our penalty was "Fulham's first shot on target all afternoon"; "the game should have been out of sight at the interval"....and more.

Seems to me that this doesn't tally with the match stats, which again gave us two thirds possession, and other indications in the rolling match report on the FFC website.

So - what's the truth?

[Neil D]

The journo also rated Norwood as our best player   which is not in line with other ratings.  On the other hand, I wasn't there.

[filham]

I was not there but the Channel five highlights made them look good in the first half while the stats indicate that we had the best of the game , but then they usually do.
Lets here from someone who was at the matchat the match.

[bog]

I saw the C5 highlights and have to say that they were denied what looked like a clear penalty, but do i care? No. 


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[rusty shackleford]

I watched the full 90 on a good stream and can agree that it was a smash and grab. We were crap, they should have slaughtered us had they taken their chances. Had a clear penalty denied while ours was dubious at best. It was as embarrassing a win ive seen.

But hey, its happened to us plenty in the past so who cares?

[toshes mate]

The 'whole' game stats show Fulham had two shots on target whilst, as the Times journalist may have noted had he been awake for all the ninety minutes, that their opponents didn't have a single shot on target, not one.

[ffcne]

I was there first half awful and Boro had a couple of one on ones but fluffed their lines.
Had a couple of half chances as well but Bettenelli did nt make a save and they had no shots on target.
We had a lot of possession but struggled to make openings.
But still thought we were in the game .
Second half we were on the front foot and Johansen upped his game.
The changes made us more positive and we looked threatening with Seess up the pitch.
When Kebano came on we looked even better and the mood with the Fulham fans that we could nick this and we got right behind them.
Yes they hit the bar and the penalty not given.But last 15 we looked more likely to score.
Pullis had settled for a point  with 15 mins to go.
And you have to admire Fulham for going for the win and not wasting time and taking the draw.
Thoroughly deserved.After a poor first half .

[Ara's bacon crisps]

First post on here after years of lurking, so go easy on me....

I was at Boro yesterday and I think the Sunday Times has it about right. We could easily have been two down in 15 minutes and three or four down by half-time on a different day - we've all seen it happen before.

Not that Boro were brilliant, but we made some poor mistakes and they missed a couple of one-on-ones wth Bettinelli. Traore, though, was so fast he was virtually unstoppable and with a better end product he could have had them out of sight by half time, but then I guess if he had an end product he wouldn't be at Boro, would he?

What impressed me about Fulham was that we rode our luck and still had enough left to put a reasonable amount of pressure on at the end, before the penalty, as Boro retreated into two Pulis banks of four presumably to preserve a point. For example, Sess was involved in a good goalmouth scramble late on, but the ball wouldn't quite fall for him. There were a lot of mis-controls from both sides, so I'm guessing the pitch wasn't the best, but we still moved the ball around in our usual way and mostly refused to lump it. With Downing and Howson running their midfield, there wasn't much pressing and so with our clever short passing game, there was often a man over and an out ball. Having said that, Bettinelli made a good save and came out well to put Gestede off, but if he, Braithwaite and Traore had brought their shooting boots with them, it could have been very different. We definitely nicked it, but how many times does the same happen to us at the Cottage, so I'll take it.

[Neil D]

First post on here after years of lurking, so go easy on me....

I was at Boro yesterday and I think the Sunday Times has it about right. We could easily have been two down in 15 minutes and three or four down by half-time on a different day - we've all seen it happen before.

Not that Boro were brilliant, but we made some poor mistakes and they missed a couple of one-on-ones wth Bettinelli. Traore, though, was so fast he was virtually unstoppable and with a better end product he could have had them out of sight by half time, but then I guess if he had an end product he wouldn't be at Boro, would he?

What impressed me about Fulham was that we rode our luck and still had enough left to put a reasonable amount of pressure on at the end, before the penalty, as Boro retreated into two Pulis banks of four presumably to preserve a point. For example, Sess was involved in a good goalmouth scramble late on, but the ball wouldn't quite fall for him. There were a lot of mis-controls from both sides, so I'm guessing the pitch wasn't the best, but we still moved the ball around in our usual way and mostly refused to lump it. With Downing and Howson running their midfield, there wasn't much pressing and so with our clever short passing game, there was often a man over and an out ball. Having said that, Bettinelli made a good save and came out well to put Gestede off, but if he, Braithwaite and Traore had brought their shooting boots with them, it could have been very different. We definitely nicked it, but how many times does the same happen to us at the Cottage, so I'll take it.

Seems like a fair, cogent assessment to me.

[Twig]

First post on here after years of lurking, so go easy on me....

I was at Boro yesterday and I think the Sunday Times has it about right. We could easily have been two down in 15 minutes and three or four down by half-time on a different day - we've all seen it happen before.

Not that Boro were brilliant, but we made some poor mistakes and they missed a couple of one-on-ones wth Bettinelli. Traore, though, was so fast he was virtually unstoppable and with a better end product he could have had them out of sight by half time, but then I guess if he had an end product he wouldn't be at Boro, would he?

What impressed me about Fulham was that we rode our luck and still had enough left to put a reasonable amount of pressure on at the end, before the penalty, as Boro retreated into two Pulis banks of four presumably to preserve a point. For example, Sess was involved in a good goalmouth scramble late on, but the ball wouldn't quite fall for him. There were a lot of mis-controls from both sides, so I'm guessing the pitch wasn't the best, but we still moved the ball around in our usual way and mostly refused to lump it. With Downing and Howson running their midfield, there wasn't much pressing and so with our clever short passing game, there was often a man over and an out ball. Having said that, Bettinelli made a good save and came out well to put Gestede off, but if he, Braithwaite and Traore had brought their shooting boots with them, it could have been very different. We definitely nicked it, but how many times does the same happen to us at the Cottage, so I'll take it.

Agree that seems like a very fair and balanced report. Certainly better than "I watched it on a stream and we were crap"!

[Southcoastffc]

First post on here after years of lurking, so go easy on me....

I was at Boro yesterday and I think the Sunday Times has it about right. We could easily have been two down in 15 minutes and three or four down by half-time on a different day - we've all seen it happen before.

Not that Boro were brilliant, but we made some poor mistakes and they missed a couple of one-on-ones wth Bettinelli. Traore, though, was so fast he was virtually unstoppable and with a better end product he could have had them out of sight by half time, but then I guess if he had an end product he wouldn't be at Boro, would he?

What impressed me about Fulham was that we rode our luck and still had enough left to put a reasonable amount of pressure on at the end, before the penalty, as Boro retreated into two Pulis banks of four presumably to preserve a point. For example, Sess was involved in a good goalmouth scramble late on, but the ball wouldn't quite fall for him. There were a lot of mis-controls from both sides, so I'm guessing the pitch wasn't the best, but we still moved the ball around in our usual way and mostly refused to lump it. With Downing and Howson running their midfield, there wasn't much pressing and so with our clever short passing game, there was often a man over and an out ball. Having said that, Bettinelli made a good save and came out well to put Gestede off, but if he, Braithwaite and Traore had brought their shooting boots with them, it could have been very different. We definitely nicked it, but how many times does the same happen to us at the Cottage, so I'll take it.

Sounds like the game I was listening to via Gentleman Jim.   Please post again. Always good to read well-written, lucid comments.

[FFC365]

First time of watching I thought Kalas took a risk in pushing the 'Boro man to the floor, but if you watch the forward only, he defo puts his arm around the neck of Kalas before he was fouled. Nobody on the box mentions this, do I need to change my B&W spectacles?

[Ara's bacon crisps]

Thanks for the kind comments all. At the risk of sullying my early reputation, the other main thing I noticed was how the Kalas substitution changed the momentum of the game. Traore had been roasting Sess for pure pace, so when Kalas came on, Odoi moved to left back and Sess moved further forward. I like Odoi - I think he reads the game well and anticipates stuff better than some of our defenders. So he managed Traore by anticipating the long balls for the flyer to chase and always positioning himself in a straight line between the ball and Traore, meaning Traore had to go around him. Clever. In fact, one foul given against him was because he was in exactly that space and Traore tripped on Odoi's heels and fell over. I know. Go figure.

So, Traore became less effective, swapped wings, became even less effective against a quicker defender in Fredericks and was eventually subbed and we all sighed with relief. At that point, with less obvious focal point up front, Boro seemed to retreat into the Pulis two banks of four and invited us to come out of our shell a bit. We did, Sess had been freed down the left by the Odoi switch, was more influential and in the end we nicked something out of it for a bit of late enterprise.

Obviously there's a bit more to it than just this, but the Kalas substitution was definitely some sort of catalyst, so nice one Slav.

Of course, I have no answer to the question of why we didn't play that formation in the first place...

[Riverside]

I was not there but listened to Gentleman Jim and the Sunday Times write up could have been written by him.

About time had a smash and grab in our favour


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Nero]

truly a game of 2 halves

[mrmicawbers]

Thanks for the kind comments all. At the risk of sullying my early reputation, the other main thing I noticed was how the Kalas substitution changed the momentum of the game. Traore had been roasting Sess for pure pace, so when Kalas came on, Odoi moved to left back and Sess moved further forward. I like Odoi - I think he reads the game well and anticipates stuff better than some of our defenders. So he managed Traore by anticipating the long balls for the flyer to chase and always positioning himself in a straight line between the ball and Traore, meaning Traore had to go around him. Clever. In fact, one foul given against him was because he was in exactly that space and Traore tripped on Odoi's heels and fell over. I know. Go figure.

So, Traore became less effective, swapped wings, became even less effective against a quicker defender in Fredericks and was eventually subbed and we all sighed with relief. At that point, with less obvious focal point up front, Boro seemed to retreat into the Pulis two banks of four and invited us to come out of our shell a bit. We did, Sess had been freed down the left by the Odoi switch, was more influential and in the end we nicked something out of it for a bit of late enterprise.

Obviously there's a bit more to it than just this, but the Kalas substitution was definitely some sort of catalyst, so nice one Slav.

Of course, I have no answer to the question of why we didn't play that formation in the first place...

Slav 1 Pulis 0 Thanks for your observations

[jarv]

I watched the second half on espn3 stream in US. Pulis tactics were Pulis tactics, in the last 15 minutes Fulham destroyed them with some decent football. OK boro had a few chances then also but there was only one team trying to play football. Well deserved win I reckon, nothing lucky about it at all. Boro penalty claim was first a foul on Kalas, Fulham penalty, he was tripped. That's a penalty. Thats my unbiased opinion. :005:

[SP]

Not there myself unfortunately.  I'm a great admirer of Assombalonga & hoped we'd signed him back in the day when he was in our budget range.  To keep a clean sheet against a team like Boro away is an excellent achievement.  On his day, Traore is one of the top players in our league IMO.

On a slight tangent, if only you could bottle that feeling the travelling fans had at the 90+5 minute mark yesterday.

[Twig]

First time of watching I thought Kalas took a risk in pushing the 'Boro man to the floor, but if you watch the forward only, he defo puts his arm around the neck of Kalas before he was fouled. Nobody on the box mentions this, do I need to change my B&W spectacles?

No. I saw the same.  Some refs would have given it but that arm round the neck could be the reason he didn't.

[EastEndWhite]

I was at the game. I thought Boro were going to score in the first half but lucky for us they didn't.  We woke up in the second half. Slav bringing Kalas on so that Sess could play further forward started to swing things in our favour.  By the end of the game I thought we were the team most likely to score and if it's because of a penalty then so be it.  The stamina of our players seems to have improved and more times than not  we are the team that finishes stronger in games.