Is Sparky Right About Our Mental Flaws?

[White Noise]

http://www.teamtalk.com/fulham/6863212/Hughes-worried-by-Fulham-fraillty


Hughes worried by Fulham fraillty


Sunday 10th April 2011 9:33


Mark Hughes felt Fulham looked like a team scarred by previous disasters at Old Trafford as they lost 2-0 against Manchester United.

Despite making a bright start, the Cottagers were powerless to respond once United had seized the initiative through first-half strikes from Dimitar Berbatov and Antonio Valencia.

The 2-0 scoreline condemned them to an incredible 18th defeat from their last 19 trips to face the Red Devils.

They have not scored a goal since they suffered a 5-1 mauling almost five years ago, and even that was thanks to Rio Ferdinand turning the ball into his own net.

And it appears psychological problems linger.

"Our record at Old Trafford is poor to say the least," said Hughes.

"At times this season we have gone to places where the scars of previous visits have come back to haunt us. That was the case again."

The result dropped Fulham back into the bottom half of the table, still not quite safe from relegation even though a single victory should be enough for them to survive.

After a decent run, in which his side have picked up seven points from their previous four games, Hughes denied the allegation that his players had downed tools.

And Gael Kakuta, who made a pleasing first Premier League start after joining the Londoners on loan from Chelsea, feels a top-10 finish remains within Fulham's grasp.

"We moved down a place in the league, but our ambitions of finishing in the top 10 are still on track," he said.

"We have six games left, so there are plenty of points up for grabs to make sure that happens," Kakuta told the club's website.

"It is my hope to be involved in more games as the season draws to an end.

"I am enjoying my time at Fulham, where I feel I have improved further as a player, and would love to play my part in what will hopefully be a strong finish to the season."

[Aldo]

I think the mental flaws we have relate to all away grounds!

[MJG]

Well its his job to improve those things and as I keep reading he's a  good/great manager and he will get it right.
Reading his comments its clear its an issue within the club and he sounds as frustrated as we all do about our away results.

[Whiteroom]

We need to win a couple on the trot. I do think that our approach away from home has improved, but there is definitely still an underlying belief that we are going to lose. It's another amazing thing about the mentality of football. Imagine if we didn't have the points rolling in at the cottage. then we would really have to worry. I'd rather be like us and win at home than like Blackpool and only win away.

[timmyg]

It's probably no coincidence that since being in the top flight our home record is inversely proportional to our away record.

It's all about Craven Cottage: We all adore it's uniqueness and historicity, but it makes playing at other grounds a bit of a challenge (and other teams find it hard to play at). Why?

I could be wrong but other teams, Stoke, BBurn, WBA, etc, all have cookie-cutter stadiums that are basically the same and built in the same era. Is there a real noticeable difference between the Molineux to the Reebok? I sure can't see any.

[HatterDon]

I honestly don't think that professionals go, "Oh, this is my lucky ground, I'm going to do well." or "Fulham never get a sniff here; we're sunk." I think that players are concerned about who will be marking them and who they have to mark. What edge we might have to exploit; what we must worry about our opponent's exploiting. I think players who have been in the top flight for a while -- and that's pretty much everybody in our squad -- are not going to be concerned about the history of a ground. Hell, I doubt if they know the history of their own ground.

The thing is that yesterday a much better team toyed with us and took us apart without sweating all that much. It had nothing to do with the history of Old Trafford, or our particular run of form there. It's that they had better personnel on the pitch -- and better tactical and strategic planning as well. It happens.

At least we still have a positive goal difference and nobody got hurt.

[Tktd]

we still have a small club mentality, arguably because we've only just started progressing forward from this in the last couple of seasons to a more established mentality.

Going to old trafford is never easy but I'm glad he sees it as a flaw he wants to change.

There's one thing I can say for Sparky which falls under a positive heading and that's that his mindset is that of a winner and hopefully it's one he can bring to the club.

[timmyg]

I honestly don't think that professionals go, "Oh, this is my lucky ground, I'm going to do well." or "Fulham never get a sniff here; we're sunk." I think that players are concerned about who will be marking them and who they have to mark. What edge we might have to exploit; what we must worry about our opponent's exploiting. I think players who have been in the top flight for a while -- and that's pretty much everybody in our squad -- are not going to be concerned about the history of a ground. Hell, I doubt if they know the history of their own ground.

The thing is that yesterday a much better team toyed with us and took us apart without sweating all that much. It had nothing to do with the history of Old Trafford, or our particular run of form there. It's that they had better personnel on the pitch -- and better tactical and strategic planning as well. It happens.

At least we still have a positive goal difference and nobody got hurt.

Don, it's more about spatial awareness than reverence of history. Remember the Europa semifinal in Hamburg? Our players got lost in all that width -- both on the field and how far the stands were.

[RidgeRider]

Agree with much of what has been written and just wanted to add my feeling is we played a high line in the match and exposed ourselves a bit too much. To play that far forward, we would have needed better athletes in the defense to contend with their attacking players. I hate to bring this up but the other guy would have had as playing back a bit more and not crowding the offensive space so much, which forced them to bring more defensive players back. We could not break them down and certainly they had better players than us. I just think after it was obvious the high line was not going work, took about 10 minutes of trying to figure that out, our players became intimidated by their pressure and ease with which they would shut down anything we tried. It was over at the point we gave up that first goal.

[maksimir]

For us to be that good at home and that unsuccessful away is nothing other than a mental issue, tactics are not changed that much.  I think Hughes should possibly utilise a psychologist or similar and for the players to only make it public when we've won two away on the trot.  Under Hodgson we were similar apart from the end of the great escape season.  As someone else has already hinted it is a matter of an away win then followed by another soon after.  Would the extra psychological push possibly be a packed away end/away noise at a 'non-glam' ground - such as 3,000 away at Wolves?