Andersen

[C Block]

The reason we lost yesterday is really very simple....in having to replace ESR with Diop we lost the midfield. First half ESR was breaking up all their moves through the middle. When he went off that changed rather dramatically with BHA able to move the ball better.
Their goal had an extremely fortunate deflection (I think Leno had it covered otherwise).
So we all know Anderson was a complete idiot and had his part in losing the game but he was far from the only reason.
Also, BHA were very dirty, the number of times they took out our players (and that goes for many other teams we have played this season).
I mentioned to one or two of the regulars around us that we just play too much side to side with not enough progressive passes (as we have done all bloody season)
Let's not forget we were also missing Berg, Iwobi, Tete, Jiminez and Sess (okay two were on the bench but unused so probably not 100% match fit).
Munez still looks like half the man he was prior to surgery.
Finally as the previous poster said, our lack of goals is why we are not winning (simple) not our defence.
Bummer but beat Wolves next week and Newcastle after that (quite likely with the absentees back fit and Kevin back in contention) we could once again finish on a respectable 54 points and once again, for the most part not had to worry about relegation.

BHA ?
So are you saying Marco Silva made a mistake taking ESR off and it should have been somebody else ?

[Fulham 442]

I think we can all agree that our lack of goals is our main concern and we need two strikers to come in in the summer but that aside we can also all agree that it was a mad challenge from Andersen which very quickly negated our one man advantage.  I'm sure I read somewhere that Andersen said he was happy at Palace but they wouldn't match the wages we were offering - I just get the feeling he doesn't care that much about the team..

[alfie]

Trying not to overreact, but he pretty much cost us today. Would happily see him not play for us again.

They had a player sent off, didn't cost them the game.

11 V 10 they would have done!

"Might" have done. Unless of course you have some magical insight 🤣

[WolverineFFC]

hes kind of the poster child for the issues with this squad. A good professional that has a good amount of talent and is just happy to be playing in the Premier league in a low pressure setting.

That could describe about 15 guys right now.

Nail meet head. Nothing is more representative of where the club now sit than him. Puts the odd top performance in but is otherwise a completely mid table Premier League player.

'Nail meets head'? Is not a mid-table Club found to have a number of mid-table-quality players to be expected? In footballing terms, what could be more obvious? To go back to the post you quote, rather than it being an 'issue', surely it's a foundation, a platform. I wouldn't describe playing P.L. football - for any club - as 'low pressure'.

A foundation should be built on. You don't stop there. That's the complaint. The ambition is lacking in the squad, which is why we've all been complaining about the same problem the past 3 seasons after January. It's not that the club aren't making Europe, instead how little challenge they seem to put forth once relegation is no longer a danger.

Just look across the pitch to the other side yesterday. The contrast couldn't be more obvious. What did yesterday make for them? Undefeated in 16? With the manager leaving? It's not an impossibility for a low budget team to challenge for Europe, our squad just seem to lack the ambition to do so. Andersen' s red card yesterday and his general play are emblematic of the issue. He's not alone in that critique, just that he was the highlight yesterday.

[SerbianLad]

I forgot it was Andersen that conceded the penalty vs Southampton. That means that he is pretty much singlehandedly responsible for the losses in two of our biggest games this season.

You can spin it whichever way you like, but the fact is, someone of his experience, and someone who is one of our captains, should know better than to make stupid decisions like that, especially in our biggest games.

[Asotosyios]

I forgot it was Andersen that conceded the penalty vs Southampton. That means that he is pretty much singlehandedly responsible for the losses in two of our biggest games this season.

You can spin it whichever way you like, but the fact is, someone of his experience, and someone who is one of our captains, should know better than to make stupid decisions like that, especially in our biggest games.

Sorry Serbian, but I think you got this completely wrong.

Mistakes, stupid desisions, etc have happened before and will happen again by players better or worse than Andersen at all levels. That's the nature of the sport.

As for "two of our biggest games this season", this is an exaggeration in my opinion. A big game is a final, maybe a semi-final or an end-of=the season game that might lead to promotion, relegation or a European place. A round-of-16 FA Cup game and a league game on which a potential win would keep our hopes for a European place alive, but far from that being a certainty, are not big games.

[SerbianLad]

Sorry Serbian, but I think you got this completely wrong.

Mistakes, stupid desisions, etc have happened before and will happen again by players better or worse than Andersen at all levels. That's the nature of the sport.

As for "two of our biggest games this season", this is an exaggeration in my opinion. A big game is a final, maybe a semi-final or an end-of=the season game that might lead to promotion, relegation or a European place. A round-of-16 FA Cup game and a league game on which a potential win would keep our hopes for a European place alive, but far from that being a certainty, are not big games.

Considering that's the furthest we've got in the FA Cup this season that's the biggest cup game we've had this year. Considering we're not fighting for a title, a match that would have put us in a pole position for Europe pretty much is definitely our biggest match this year.

Which match from this season would you consider to be bigger than those two matches?

As for "everyone makes mistakes part", I'm sorry, but he's definitely pretty much the only one at fault in those two matches. To concede a last minute penalty means you lose that match 99.99% of the time. And Bournemouth red is a similar thing. We were much better than them and then even got a man advantage when their player was sent off. It's logical to assume we'd continue to dominate or maybe even be more dominant if he wasn't sent off. I'd be willing to bet we would have won if we played the entire second half 11v10. Look at Iraola's face after their player got sent off. He looked dejected. He had a look of a man who was very worried he was going to lose.

[Plodder]

I forgot it was Andersen that conceded the penalty vs Southampton. That means that he is pretty much singlehandedly responsible for the losses in two of our biggest games this season.

You can spin it whichever way you like, but the fact is, someone of his experience, and someone who is one of our captains, should know better than to make stupid decisions like that, especially in our biggest games.

"Singlehandedly"?  Really?  Nothing to do with how the rest of the team performed, then?

[Asotosyios]

I could potentially add them to the "important games" category along with the League Cup quarter-final against Newcastle, but would say we didn't have any "big" games this year.

If you prefer it though, we can use the saying of an ex-Greek basketball player when we won the European Championship in 1987 (God, I feel old now!): this was the biggest game till the next one.

[SerbianLad]

"Singlehandedly"?  Really?  Nothing to do with how the rest of the team performed, then?

We get at least to overtime against Southampton if he doesn't give away a penalty. We certainly don't almost definitely go out like you do if you concede a last minute penalty.

As I've already said, there was nothing to suggest we would lose the Bournemouth match,prior to Andersen getting sent off. We were dominant, our movement was sharp, we were creating chances and it all looked good, and after their player got sent off it looked like it would be a win, or at absolute worst we'd fail to score and it will stay 0-0.

I also didn't say "singlehandedly" , I said "pretty much singlehandedly", as obviously some fault can be put at other players, but his mistakes were so costly that he is by far the biggest culprit.

[Arthur]

A foundation should be built on. You don't stop there. That's the complaint. The ambition is lacking in the squad, which is why we've all been complaining about the same problem the past 3 seasons after January. It's not that the club aren't making Europe, instead how little challenge they seem to put forth once relegation is no longer a danger.

Just look across the pitch to the other side yesterday. The contrast couldn't be more obvious. What did yesterday make for them? Undefeated in 16? With the manager leaving? It's not an impossibility for a low budget team to challenge for Europe, our squad just seem to lack the ambition to do so. Andersen' s red card yesterday and his general play are emblematic of the issue. He's not alone in that critique, just that he was the highlight yesterday.

It is a matter of opinion as to why we have not qualified for Europe. You think the players lack ambition: I, on the other hand, think it's our style of play that has seen us come up short.

I also think it evident my use of the word 'foundation' refers to the quality of the players in the squad being a foundation for bringing in better players. You, however, have used 'foundation' in the sense of the team having a sufficient number of points at an earlier stage in the season to be in with a chance of qualifying for Europe but not picking up enough to in the run-in to make it happen. Yours is a different point - my answer to which is in the paragraph above. You've taken the word 'foundation' from my post as if you're responding to my point, but you've merely side-stepped it.

I would also add it is not obvious (to me, anyhow) that a red card for serious foul play is a typical feature of 'how little challenge (the players) seem to put forth once relegation is no longer a danger'. Nor have I noticed Andersen's general play since then being any different. For what it's worth, the numerical evidence shows that, since reaching 40 points with our victory against Spurs, Andersen has featured in seven P.L. matches in which we've conceded seven goals. Our average number of goals conceded per league game this season is one-and-a-third.

[Plodder]

Is "pretty much singlehandedly" significantly different from "singlehandedly"?

If you look at Bournemouth's goal yesterday, Chukwueze made a less than half hearted attempt to close down Rayan. Then Oscar Bobb blazed over the bar when he had the whole goal to aim at. If we are going to identify individual mistakes as the sole or major cause of defeats, we could start with those, but that would let off those who didn't make mistakes because they did not even play well enough to create or get on the end of significant opportunities. Or they made mistakes which went unpunished.

It is very rare for one player's mistake to be the major/sole cause of a defeat, as if the rest of the team had been robbed of victory somehow.  It certainly was not the case in the two games we are discussing.

[SerbianLad]

Is "pretty much singlehandedly" significantly different from "singlehandedly"?

If you look at Bournemouth's goal yesterday, Chukwueze made a less than half hearted attempt to close down Rayan. Then Oscar Bobb blazed over the bar when he had the whole goal to aim at. If we are going to identify individual mistakes as the sole or major cause of defeats, we could start with those, but that would let off those who didn't make mistakes because they did not even play well enough to create or get on the end of significant opportunities. Otr they made mistakes which went unpunished.

It is very rare for one player's mistake to be the major/sole cause of a defeat, as if the rest of the team had been robbed of victory somehow.  It certainly was not the case in the two games we are discussing.

To me there's a big enough difference. Between those two things.


Chukwueze wouldn't have needed to close him down if we were playing 11v10.

Regardless, we seemingly disagree on this, so it's probably pointless to argue more.

[AnotherVicHalomLoveChild]

I think that before we try and dispose of 2/3 rds of the current squad we should (hopwfully) allow the new manager to make their assessment, identify their views on how our current players would fit into the new managers playing style, then make decisions on who to release and hopefully recruit from a pre identified list of replacements
It's not our job!
We need a starter, completer and finisher in charge
Sadly it isn't Marco.

[alfie]

Is "pretty much singlehandedly" significantly different from "singlehandedly"?

If you look at Bournemouth's goal yesterday, Chukwueze made a less than half hearted attempt to close down Rayan. Then Oscar Bobb blazed over the bar when he had the whole goal to aim at. If we are going to identify individual mistakes as the sole or major cause of defeats, we could start with those, but that would let off those who didn't make mistakes because they did not even play well enough to create or get on the end of significant opportunities. Otr they made mistakes which went unpunished.

It is very rare for one player's mistake to be the major/sole cause of a defeat, as if the rest of the team had been robbed of victory somehow.  It certainly was not the case in the two games we are discussing.

To me there's a big enough difference. Between those two things.


Chukwueze wouldn't have needed to close him down if we were playing 11v10.

Regardless, we seemingly disagree on this, so it's probably pointless to argue more.

Sorry Mr S, you can't say he wouldn't have needed to close him down, we weren't playing 11v10, so he did need to try and close him down.

With that by Chukwueze, Muniz miss, Bobby's blaze over, could we not say that they were also mistakes that could have pushed us up.

[Arthur]

And Bournemouth red is a similar thing. We were much better than them and then even got a man advantage when their player was sent off. It's logical to assume we'd continue to dominate or maybe even be more dominant if he wasn't sent off. I'd be willing to bet we would have won if we played the entire second half 11v10.

Clearly, our chances of winning would have been greater had we played the second half with an extra player to Bournemouth. Yet if, as you say, we were much better than them 11 v 11, why didn't we go on to win when it was 10 v 10? Andersen squandered our advantage, but this didn't put us at a disadvantage; it merely restored numerical parity.

I think Andersen's folly has directed attention away from another problem: yet another performance in which we were found wanting in the attacking third, with Silva seemingly unable to find the tactics to improve matters.

[bobbo]

ive said it before im really loathed to slag any player off heavily . but most are saying hes definately not the player he was first time around and its true its there for all to see , if you dont see it then i dont understand . But just that tackle that got him sent off was nothing less than wreckless he cant be so stupid as to not know jumping in with 2 feet is going to see him red carded . i actually think there was a bit of incompetance by the ref not to do it straight away.

[fulhamfan]

hes been crap since Christmas and for some reason Silva keeps playing him. I hope hes sold in summer but hes on massive wages

[southwest6]

Andersen is the least of our problems, IMO. Yeah, agreed, he ultimately cost us the game, but it was also the team's responsibility to win the game at 10 v 10.

We need upgrades at RB (teams constantly target castagne), CM (we need two new CMs), and a number 9. Muniz has been really ineffective since coming back from injury, i'm actually a bit concerned...

Also, see that people have been slagging ESR again, and yet again, i thought he was one of our better players in the first half. I would have taken Wilson off, who was really ineffective throughout the whole game

[Zoppa77]

W T Frig?
Anyone who is defending Andersen's actions & suggesting it did not cost us a potential win is misguided. Him being sent off affected our set up, strategy & team morale.
Misses by Chuk, Bobb are not in the same category as the stupidity of Andersen. 100% agree with SL. Still can't get over Andersen's tackle & then him arguing/questioning the decision with a smile on his face. Very disappointing.