Tag Archives: Man City vs Fulham

The View from South Texas — Manchester City v. Fulham FC

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by HatterDon

Citeh Waltz Past Toothless Fulham

I hardly ever got into fights in high school, but one I remember really only lasted about 15 seconds. The guy took a wild swing. As momentum moved him past me, I grabbed him in a headlock and held on to him for about 15 minutes until he fell down exhausted. I never had to throw a punch. This pretty much describes the first hour of today’s Man City v. Fulham match. On the first of at least 20 occasions, Fulham surrendered the ball in their own half. A reasonably tame shot was parried into the path of David Silva who calmly converted and it was 1-0 and game over. This was in the 2nd minute of the match.

For the next hour or so, Fulham maintained control to the extent that the Citeh supporters howled in their frustration. During this period, Fulham managed a corner or two, but only one serious attempt on goal. When yet another midfield turnover presented Silva with his second – and what a player the little guy is – he made no mistake. You would normally say that this second goal “made the points secure” for the Etihad Billionaires, but the truth is that their one goal lead was all the surety they needed on the day. As nervous as the home fans were, nobody on the pitch – in either uniform – had the slightest doubt of the result. I doubt if any Fulham fan did either.

So, yes, we lost 2-0 to the richest club in the world – at their house. Yes, they started the day with Balotelli, Nasri, and Aguero ON THE RESERVES BENCH. So there’s no shame, right? Well, perhaps, but it would have been nice to have forced Hart into at least one save, to have forced him to race from his goal line to intercept a dangerous cross at least once. But that never was going to be the case. City were comfortable with Fulham passing the ball sideways, narrowing rather than broadening their “attack,” and making few forays near the City penalty area. Yes, City were comfortable. The thing is, so were Fulham.

How to assess the individual performances … well, just about every player surrendered possession in a dangerous area. This is a by-product of not spending nearly enough possession time actually attacking your opponent. The defense looked better than they have, the central midfield was much improved over the Wigan match. The attackers did what they were supposed to do under the “Jol strategy.” The only person to point a finger at for sub-standard play is Mark Schwarzer. He was completely at fault for the opening goal, and his distribution was more horrid than usual. I’m sorry, but we’ve loaned the wrong goalkeeper to Hull.

When all the outfield players do what they’re supposed to do and we still don’t mount any serious attempts on goal – or even any 30 yard hit-and-hopes – the problem is not the quality of play. The problem is the game plan. We want to make a lot of passes. We want to move sloooooooowwwwwwwwlllly out of defense into attack. We want to keep Berbatov closer to the halfway line than the opponents’ penalty area while in possession. We want to move the wide players towards the center whenever they are 15 yards from the goal line. We cluster everyone so tightly that the fewest number of defenders have to cover us. This leaves more defenders available to turn our 82nd sideways pass into a counter-attack.

So, yes, losing 2-0 to Manchester City at their patch is no mark of shame. It’s nothing to get positive about either. Absolutely no attacking against a team ready to play counter-punching football is not a positive step for the rest of the season. It’s also hard to celebrate the narrowness of the defeat when you consider that Edin Dzeko could easily have made it 6-0. The fact is that it is going to be a nervous, worrisome next few months. Fulham have the talent to escape relegation easily, but the way that talent is sent out to play every week is going to ensure that points will be very hard to come by.

HatterDon’s Man of the Match goes to Steve Sidwell for just always going for it. He was the only starter out there who hasn’t caught Dimitar Berbatov Slow-motion Sickness. A strong honorable mention for a quality substitute performance by Matthew Briggs.

Next weekend will be devoted to the FA Cup tie at Old Trafford. COYW

The View From South Texas — Manchester City v. Fulham

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by HatterDon

Night-Baird on Snow Street

As soon as Fulham’s lineup was published, you knew that it was going to be a long day. Even without Vincent Kompany – for my money the best player in the Prem this season – and without Yaya Toure, getting anything out of today’s visit to Eastlands was possible only if the match ended 0-0. We helped Sergio Aguero break out of his slump by conceding our first penalty of the season, gave another goal to Edin Dzeko, and in between contributed an own goal under pretty much no pressure at all. Could have been worse, though. Nobody got hurt. Could have been better, though. After 40 minutes or so I was hoping for the match to be abandoned as our match at Sunderland was several seasons back. Nah. On this day at least, God wasn’t a Fulham fan.

With a weakened City back four, what this match needed was a strong, physical presence at the point of our attack – somebody who could hold up the ball, distribute it, pressure the central defenders, and lay off the ball to our 4-D midfield attackers. In other words, we needed Bobby Zamora today. In that role in his last start, the enigmatic striker bagged three assists and a goal against a very good Newcastle team. Without him, we were lost in attack. We made a couple of decent moves, but using Dempsey as the fulcrum of the attack negates his greatest strength – those long runs that allow him to show up late and tap them in. Instead, he was prowling around the edge of the area with Davies and the excellent Duff, none of whom, of course, had Zamora to play off either.

As for our defense, please let it be said that Chris Baird is an excellent CB, and very good defensive mid, a somewhat better than average RB, but no kind of LB at all. With the prospect of facing Adam Johnson and the frightening runs of Micah Richards, Jol replaced Riise with Baird and Johnson flat ate him for lunch. Some will say that the penalty was a weak one. I’ll agree, while also pointing out that we’ve been lucky this season about four times when a penalty was not called. Make that SIX TIMES, since Citeh had two very creditable shouts for another penalty. Johnson drove in and beat Baird who stuck out a trailing leg for no apparent reason. Johnson fell over it [or at least near it], and there was the penalty and, in a sense, the match.

Fulham looked like the game plan was to lose by as few goals as possible and not to get anyone injured. That we succeeded in that is testimony to Scarfy Mancini, who obviously told his boys to take their foot off the gas. For the last half hour, City were content to pass the ball around in midfield. As a matter of fact, most of their good attacking moves came from weak Fulham corners. There was exactly one decent corner today – delivered by Riise who came on for Senderos. City didn’t have that many. It’s all very well to have the undersoil heating keep the pitch clear of ice; it would be even nicer if the paths to the corner flag had the same affect.

Who looked good? For the third match running, Damian Duff gave it everything he had. Davies amazed me by putting in another 90 minutes in freezing conditions. Hangeland was decent, although the pitch didn’t favor any defender. Which brings up a point I’ve always wanted to make here. When the playing surface is icy, snowy, or muddy, the advantage has to go to the attacking team because attacking players know where they’re going while defenders have to react. Fulham never once pushed City’s midfield. The highly suspect Savic didn’t touch the ball today in my memory, and Joe Hart’s brilliant save in injury time was amazing in that it was the only work he had to do for 95 minutes.

Some will say that we shouldn’t have expected anything today. Given the weather, I suppose that’s a solid argument. But we never pressured their makeshift defense – NOT ONCE – while all three of their goals came as the result of our defenders struggling with the conditions enough to be just slightly too slow to react. And, as they like to say, the conditions are the same for both teams. Some may say that a three goal beating at the league leaders was to be expected, but we’d taken 8 of our the last 12 points at the City of Manchester Stadium, and had justice been served last season, it would have been 10 of 12. I’m not sure why we didn’t at least go for it.

Hard to pick out a Man of the Match, so I won’t, but it was great to see Mark Schwarzer out there. His distribution is still the weakest aspect of his game, but he marshaled our penalty area well, wasn’t at fault for any of the goals, and made a few handy saves. I wasn’t sure if he’d had any actual pitch time since his injury – reserves/closed door friendlies – but he sure looked good today.

Here’s hoping that conditions are better in London and that Pog’s exit visa from Germany is resolved before Stoke City next weekend. If we’re going to play this toothless on the road, we’re going to have to get the 12 or so points we need at home. Shouldn’t be a problem.

As usual, I haven’t read any match reports or any comments on Fulham sites before writing this. I’m really looking forward to reading how the result was the fault of Dembëlë, Kelly, Senderos, or Ruiz. I don’t expect to be disappointed. Sigh

COYW