Sunday Fulham Stuff (25/09/11)...

[WhiteJC]

 
John Pantsil Chases 100th English League Cap

Ghana defender John Pantsil is set to make 100 English League appearances if he is selected by Leicester City on Sunday.

The right-back has been playing in England since 2006 and moved to the second-tier league after seeing out his contract at Fulham.

Pantsil signed for West Ham United after the 2006 Fifa World Cup finals in Germany before switching to Craven Cottage.

Sven-Goran Eriksson's side travel to Cardiff City in the Npower Championship to defend their unbeaten away record.

Leicester have picked up eight points out of 12 (two wins, two draws), since their second defeat of the league season, home to Bristol City on 17 August.



http://www.ghanasoccernet.com/john-pantsil-chases-100th-english-league-cap/?

[WhiteJC]

 
Eastleigh teenager lands Fulham trial


PREMIERSHIP outfit Fulham have won the race to take at closer look at Eastleigh's 16-year-old strike prodigy Sam Wilson.

No fewer than five Football League clubs, including Saints, have enquired about the West End-based frontman, including two who want ed to take him on trial.

Eastleigh have turned down both those clubs for the time being, but have agreed to Fulham's request to take Wilson on a week's assessment, starting on Monday.

Wilson joined Eastleigh's youth set-up last season having spent a season at the Portsmouth Academy where he was initially coached by Mark Chamberlain, dad of ex-Saint Alex.

He left Wildern School in the sum mer and was one of the first to sign up for the Spitfires' full-time player development scheme designed to funnel youngsters through to the pro game.

Eastleigh's director of football Dave Malone identified Wilson as one to watch during pre-season but didn't expect the livewire teenager to attract so much attention from so many clubs so soon.

Wilson, who turns 17 in a fortnight, has played just 155 minutes of football in his debut Blue Square Bet South season, making one start against Bromley and appearing eight times off the bench.

"Sam could have gone back to Portsmouth in the summer, but he decided to stay and I said to his dad that if he got anywhere near the first team clubs would be swarming all over him," said Malone. "But I didn't anticipate it happening in six weeks!

"We said no to a couple of clubs because we can't see the benefit in him going there at the moment, but Fulham have been quite persistent and you can't deny a lad the chance to go to a Premiership club.

"But there's no guarantee that, come the end of next week, Fulham will say they want him or will come up with what Eastleigh and the lad himself will be happy with.

"If he were to join Fulham a fee would be applicable, but it's absolutely not the case that that's why we want him to go there. It's completely up to him if he goes or not."

Unlike Brett Williams, sold by Eastleigh for £50,000 to Reading in January, Wilson has some growing to do before he is ready for the pro fessional game.

"Sam's a bit unusual given that most strikers in our league are 6ft 3in, 14 stone powerhouses," said Malone. "He's more of a Kevin Keegan than a Ron Davies size-wise. But if Fulham take him, it will be his potential they're invest ing in.

"He needs a couple of years to get stronger, but he's got balls, a bit of pace and he's not afraid of 9ft 3in defenders!"

Wilson went on as a late substitute as Eastleigh ended a run of four league games without a win by beating Staines Town 2-1 this afternoon.

Jamie Slabber and Jamie Brown wiped out an audacious 45-yard free-kick by Staines' ex-Spitfire Adam Everitt.



http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/9270509.Eastleigh_teenager_lands_Fulham_trial/?

[WhiteJC]

 
WEST BROM 0 FULHAM 0: FLAG DAY SAVES BAGGIES AS SIAN GETS IT SPOT ON


It's not often a referee's assistant gets top billing

AKE a bow Sian Massey. It's not often a referee's assistant gets top billing but she never put a front wrong at the Hawthorns.

The young lady who found herself unwittingly at the centre of the sexism storm which resulted in the departures of Andy Gray and Richard Keys from Sky Sports, was involved in another key moment yesterday.

And she got it spot on.

When Pajtim Kasami got the ball in the net for Fulham in the 14th minute, Massey had her flag raised immediately to rule it out for offside.

Fulham players looked surprised but television replays showed that the decision was right. The midfielder was inches the wrong side of his defender but offside he definitely was. 

Fulham's control of the first half was confirmed by the statistics. They had 62 per cent of possession and created a glut of chances.

Unfortunately there was no cutting edge to their attacks.

They missed strikers Bobby Zamora and Andrew Johnson, who were both sent home on the morning of the game with infections, while Damien Duff was missing through "personal and private reasons". 

The one time they got the ball in the net through Kasami, Ms Massey halted their celebrations with her raised flag.

Fulham boss Martin Jol thought his player should have been given the benefit of the doubt.

He said: "In those situations you would want to see the advantage given to the attacker but this was not about one offside goal.

"We had all the possession. But you need to finish them off.  I think we looked the better team.

"I can live with a draw but I wish we had exploited that opportunity."

Although Ben Foster had spilled Clint Dempsey's shot to set up that disallowed effort, the Albion keeper was generally untroubled in the opening half despite the visitors' monopoly of the ball.

His defence worked overtime to protect Foster's goal with debutant Gareth McAuley proving a valuable addition to the Baggies' backline.

The second half began as the first half ended – with Fulham on top. Albion survived when Dempsey's miscued volley hit Jonas Olsson and came back off the crossbar. But for all their dependency on their solid defence, West Bromwich should have taken the lead in the 64th minute.

Youssouf Mulumbu prised open a chance for Peter Odemwingie, who put his shot too close to Mark Schwarzer with only the keeper to beat.

The striker was converting those chances for fun once he got into his stride last season, and manager Roy Hodgson hopes he will soon rediscover his finishing touch.

The Baggies boss said: "Front players have spells where things don't go for them. He is not short of match fitness.

"I don't agree that he's lacking sharpness but we judge goalscorers by chances and he will be disappointed he didn't take that chance."

Albion got the upper hand for a long stretch of the second half but Fulham almost opened the scoring against the run of play.

Foster saved superbly from Riise's stinging low shot and reacted again to keep out the follow-up from £10million Fulham substitute Brian Ruiz.

Either side could have won it in stoppage time.

Chris Brunt slammed a 20-yard effort against the inside of Schwarzer's post and Orlando Sa blazed a good chance over the top from a similar range.

Hodgson blamed himself for his side's poor first-half performance against his old club but was pleased with the outcome once he had adjusted his formation.

The Baggies boss said: "In the first half we didn't play at all well. I take some responsibility but we tampered with way we were playing and with our system."MATCH FACTSMAN of the MATCH: Danny Murphy – was the dominant force in midfield behind most of Fulham's attacks and was responsible for breaking down Albion's attempts to force a breakthrough. WEST BROM: Foster, Reid, Olsson, McAuley, Shorey, Dorrans (Morrison 78th), Mulumbu, Brunt, Odemwingie, Long, Thomas (Tchoyi 82nd).

FULHAM: Schwarzer, Grygera, Hangeland, Baird, Riise, Kasami, (Ruiz (75th) 6), Sidwell, Murphy (Etuhu 88), Dembele, Dempsey, Sa.

Ref: S Attwell   Att: 23,835



http://www.express.co.uk/football/view/273504/West-Brom-0-Fulham-0-Flag-day-saves-Baggies-as-Sian-gets-it-spot-on-?

[WhiteJC]

 
West Brom 0-0 Fulham: A Tale of Two Games



I'm not even going to do my normal postgame wrapup here.  Clint Dempsey was awful and the defense was really freakin good.  That's all you need to know from the good and bad standpoint.  There are more important things to get to here.

First of all, this was an awful game.  One of the most boring, sloppy, just overall bad soccer matches I've ever watched.  Fulham was bad and West Brom was even worse.  It ended at midnight here, and I was falling asleep on multiple occasions.

Now that that's out of the way, this is my thought process now that it's over: there are two totally different schools of thought you can process this game in.  And I don't think either is wrong.

Reaction number 1: You can take this match completely by itself, apart from the rest of Fulham's season, and taking into account the fact that Bobby Zamora and Andy Johnson were sick, Damien Duff was out for "personal reasons," and Fulham were playing away at a tough Hawthornes.  If you look at the match that way, a 0-0 draw is a pretty good result.  Were the Baggies beatable? Of course they were.  They literally played like a League 2 side for the first half.  But before the match, given the "injuries," 0-0 is perfectly acceptable.

Reaction number 2: You can take this match in the context of the entire season, in which Fulham have failed to record a victory and are close to the bottom of the table.  The form so far on the short season is 2 losses and 3 draws (3 losses and 5 draws since August 21 if you count the Europa League and Wednesday's Carling Cup match), and Fulham have struggled scoring the ball all season long.  If you look at the match this way, the first thought that should be running through your head is, "if we can't score against a West Brom side that played like a high school team in the first half, who can we score against?" And that's a very, very scary thought.  In addition, given the comeback against Manchester City and the well-played match against Chelsea midweek, you would have thought Fulham would have exuded much more confidence in this match, but it appeared they had absolutely no cutting edge in the attacking third.  Given all this, 0-0 is basically a failure of a result.

No matter how you look at it, the outlook isn't very good.  Fulham have scored 5 goals in their last 8 matches overall, including being shut out 4 times.  They've lacked confidence in front of goal.  More than that, I personally think the club as a whole completely lacks creativity in front of net.  There is absolutely no creativity to speak of.  And it doesn't get any easier from here.  The Cottagers are back home for only 2 of their next 6 matches, including those against an in-form QPR, and at a Stoke City team with one of the better defenses in the Premiership.

If you're looking for a bright side from this West Brom fixture, there certainly was one.  The defense was absolutely rock solid.  Couldn't have been any better.  Mark Schwarzer capped it off with a few sparkling saves, but for the most part Zdenek Grygera continues to impress in his one-on-one skills, Brede Hangeland was once again, at least for one match, himself, Chris Baird looked like a natural center-back, and John Arne Riise was also solid.  In that sense, Fulham was very very good.

But we knew they had a good defense.  There are other options like Matthew Briggs and Stephen Kelly and Aaron Hughes that could have performed equally as well.  The issue is scoring, and if you can't score you can't win, bottom line.

Finally, here's my last rant of the day: if someone can explain to me why Martin Jol took out our captain, pitch leader, and most experienced player with 3 minutes to go in a winnable 0-0 match, maybe I'll step down.  But right now, what in hell is he thinking???? Just a disastrous move that may have sealed the draw for us in the end.  It's a "draws are ok" mindset that is killing this team.  It continued to his postmatch press conference:

"I think in the first half, you can't play better than we did. With our possession, it looked like a home game for us to be honest. That was new for us. We controlled the game, and we had to. They had their first opportunity in probably the 64th minute, that says it all. We had all the possession. But you need to finish them off.  I think we looked the better team."

How many times have we heard that last sentence in the last few weeks? Apparently Martin Jol still hasn't learned that "looking the better team" doesn't get the team points.  Wins do.  And Fulham have zero of those things they call wins.  I'm getting tired of his nonchalant attitude.  The manager's attitude is passed on to his team, and right now he's passing on an attitude which is leading to a lack of a will to win in front of goal.

Hats off to: I'd like to take this moment to personally thank Peter Odemwingie, who was possibly the worst player on the pitch.  He certainly assisted Fulham in getting at least a point out of this match.  He gave the ball away over and over again, his crosses were just dreadful, and when he did take the time to shoot, they sailed over the bar.

Where does Fulham go from here?: Geez I don't even know.  Hopefully somewhere up.  Maybe the Europa League fixture this week can give them some more confidence.  Although if they didn't have confidence from the last 2 matches, I don't know where they're gonna get it from.

I know this club will turn things around.  I know it.  There's too much talent on the team, and quite frankly, Fulham are at the moment the most unlucky team in the Premier League without a doubt.  They can't catch a break.  But it's really, really, really frustrating to watch.  I know this is basically the worst thing I can say, but at times, they're resembling the 07-08 team.



http://fulhamsfinest.com/2011/09/25/west-brom-0-0-fulham-a-tale-of-two-games/?

[WhiteJC]

 
Jol's Reaction

Fulham Manager Martin Jol felt his team deserved more than a point from Saturday's game at the Hawthorns.

Speaking immediately after the match Jol highlighted his team's dominance during the first half against West Brom.

"It looked like an away game for them [West Brom]today," said Jol. "We did everything we planned in training but we have to finish our chances off.

"The main task was to get them away from our goal and we did that. I can live with a draw but if you look at the general play we should have exploited the majority of possession we had, especially in the first half.

"It's a bit disappointing we didn't take more from the game. I believe we're in a false position in the League when we're playing like we did today."

Fulham were without the firepower of Bobby Zamora and Andrew Johnson on Saturday and Jol revealed that both players were sent home after falling ill.

"We had to send them both home and exclude them from the squad," said Jol. "They went home this morning. Bobby Zamora had a stomach upset and Andrew had symptoms of flu."



Read more: http://www.fulhamfc.com/Club/News/NewsArticles/2011/September/JolReactionWestBrom.aspx#ixzz1YwRj2JBO

[White Noise]

http://www.people.co.uk/sport/football/news/2011/09/25/fulham-and-aston-villa-are-considering-a-january-move-for-brighton-defender-lewis-dunk-102039-23444083/


Fulham and Aston Villa are considering a January move for Brighton defender Lewis Dunk

Sep 25 2011 by People Sport


FULHAM and Aston Villa are keeping tabs on Brighton defender Lewis Dunk, with a view to a January move.

The 19-year-old centre-half has made a great start to the season after injuries to team-mates paved the way for a run in the first team.

The Premier League pair will continue to monitor the former Brighton youth-team captain's progress at the Amex Stadium before the transfer window opens, although both know he will not come cheap.

Seagulls boss Gus Poyet does not want to lose Dunk and will demand at least £1.5million, which could prove too costly for Fulham and Villa.

[White Noise]

http://www.people.co.uk/sport/football/news/2011/09/25/mark-hughes-will-turn-down-an-approach-from-struggling-bundesliga-side-hamburg-102039-23443808/


Mark Hughes will turn down an approach from struggling Bundesliga side Hamburg

Sep 25 2011 by People Sport


MARK HUGHES is desperate for a return to management – but will turn down an SOS from struggling Bundesliga outfit Hamburg.

The former Manchester City boss knows that he might have to use a job on the continent as a stepping stone to a Premier League return – but Hamburg won't be it.

Sparky does not want to take over a club struggling for cash and results and further dent a reputation bruised by his exits from City and Fulham.

Hughes has an army of admirers in Germany after a spell during his playing career at Bayern Munich, and Hamburg sporting director Frank Arnesen, formerly of Chelsea and Spurs, knows all about his capabilities. But Welshman Hughes is prepared to play a waiting game.

[White Noise]

http://www.people.co.uk/sport/columnists/dave-kidd/2011/09/25/frank-lampard-gets-away-with-gesturing-the-scoreline-at-fulham-fans-unlike-joey-barton-102039-23443355/


Frank Lampard gets away with gesturing the scoreline at Fulham fans - unlike Joey Barton


Sep 25 2011 by Dave Kidd, The People


WHILE Joey Barton was castigated for gesturing the scoreline towards Wolves supporters last weekend, Frank Lampard got away scot free with taunting Fulham fans by counting their empty seats during Wednesday's Carling Cup tie.

This could fuel Barton's victim complex and his belief that the cleaner-cut likes of Lampard always get preferential treatment.

Or it could be that Lampard's gesture was witty and original, while Barton's was not.

[White Noise]

http://www.people.co.uk/sport/football/sport-confidential/2011/09/25/zesh-rehman-launches-a-new-app-to-help-uk-footballers-overseas-102039-23443954/

Zesh Rehman launches a new app to help UK footballers overseas


Sep 25 2011 by Dean Jones, The People


BRITS abroad can now settle quicker into their new surroundings thanks to former Fulham defender Zesh Rehman.

He is launching a new phone app to help UK footballers overseas.

Rehman hit on the idea after struggling with the lingo in Thailand, where he plays for Muangthong United.

With the support of team-mate Robbie Fowler, Rehman is bringing out an app called Football Talk, which will immediately translate everyday phrases into a variety of languages.

[ScalleysDad]

Thanks for collating these JC. For the most part my half full cup has pulled back from the edge of the precipice.
Fulhams Finest missed a key rant in his series of rants thought.The substitution of Murphy so late in the day to bolster the draw nearly backfired of course. Etuhu got one sideways pass away, one forward one and then produced a sloppy, useless one that gave them the ball circa 91 minutes.