Pedestrian or Disillusioned?

[General]

It started when Hughes came in, you saw a few disgrunted performances and mumblings of discontent from Fulham players, but it's really come to the fore since we got rid of Zamora in January.

Something is going on at the club which we as fans are seeing the whole picture of and it is starting to worry me.

Forget todays performance I will always support Fulha, i've been through enough of Lawrie Sanchez to know that. But when something's going on and we as fans are told about it, but instead just expected to wait for it to blow over etc I don't think that's something I want to do.


Etuhu and Murphy both left - Murphy loved the club that is clear and would've stayed on if we had given him the contract he wanted. Now I know we need to move onwards as a club but we clearly haven't. and it shows.

Our defence, something that used to be so solid under Hodgson and even Hughes to a certain extent have let in 6 feeble goals in two games - our midfield is weak and Richardson in my opinion, although it is early days, isn't a step forward by any step of the imagination.

Some of the players performances today have seemed very dazed and pedestrian - our reassured players seem to be panicking, our strength in depth is practically non exisitent and well players just seem to have lost their spark - lost their passion for playing at the moment and what's worse, is it seems to be getting into players like Kacaniklic who was evidently hit for six with the news of the Dembele sale when questioned after the sheffield wednesday game...

I know it's early on but apart from Berba, Rodallega and Petric the other players we've brought in don't stack up and this worries me, greatly....

I know I've been on this board a lot over the last couple of days and posted a lot - some necessary and some unnecessary, but it looks like a group of individuals out there now... I haven't seen that at Fulham for a while now.

[Grant]

I only watched on tv, but that was so dissapointing.
There didn't seem to be any urgency to do anything and I thought the defence was bloody awful.
I feel we've had the guts ripped out of the team and Sidwell isn't half the player Dembele is.
On the plus side, West Ham are our bogey team, and Berbatov looks absolute class to me.

[alexbishop]

What we don't have anymore is the passion or desire to turn a game around. We were better second half today but showed no desire to turn the game into a point.

Players look happy enough to play football but don't appear motivated to gain points for the team. Our defence can be so strong some games and so weak in others it's bizarre. No tenacity, no closing down, no gritty daring tackles no nothing really. We only committed 4 fouls today!

It is worrying after games like this, trouble is, the next week we'll come out and steam roll a team 5-0 which confuses things even more

[TonyGilroy]

We did really well after Christmas last year as a team with Jol managing.

Away days like this have been regular occurances for years.

[RidgeRider]

Lots of new faces and two of them have never trained with the team. We lost our two best players, one was an apparent surprise. We played away to a team that was UP for the match and shut us down and at turn and we weren't ready for it. I'm not panicking.

To your main point, Sanchez, Hodgson, Hughes, Zamora, AJ, Etuhu, Dempsey, Bullard all left in some sort of disgruntled fashion. Murphy clearly wanted out and I still wonder about the motivations of Konch. I thought I had read we have seen the same with Saha, Vandersar, Tigana and a few others.

This either means this is the way of football or the way of Fulham.

I recall that one of my feelings, during the Hodgson departure, was MAF must be a hard man to work for. I don't know this to be the truth, it is just a feeling I have. I always thought his chin grabbing move with Hughes when we brought him in was the end of Hughes desire to stay. I didn't really like Hughes but it was something to consider and spoke volumes about our Chairman and his feelings towards managers and players.

We spent very little this transfer period and have essentially balanced the transfer books from last summer with all the extra cash the team hauled in over the summer.

This club is well run and in the end players and managers are expendable mercenary employees and nothing more. No matter how much we think they love the club, they could be off in a moment.

I do think though that when you get on the wrong side of the club as a player, things seem to get a little messy and then of course many of us blame the players loyalty.

In terms of the effect on our players and what we saw today, I don't know whether all this effects them or not. Many of our guys now are Jol guys so I think what we saw today was AWAY form and probably had very little to do with the vibe amongst the players at the club right now.

[dont stand me down]

General,I left at half time for the first time in 38 years,I've seen us lose to Port Vale 6-0 at home and 7-0 to Chester away,so go back a long time,I have no idea what tactics Jol had in mind during the game.I know a few will say 'its a bad day at the office'etc,but sides watching that will know now we have no fight in midfield and can be bullied.Its true to say I have grave concerns abouts Jols tactics for sometime BUT can anyone tell me what he may have  had in mind for today?Riise was exposed time and time again by a lack of cover,and Jol did.....nothing.He took off Petric who had balls hoofed foward all first half and bought on Berba.why and where was the service?I can see why Moussa went but murphy wouldve cost the club how much for an extra year??I genuinely am not trying to pick a fight but Jol has shown himself to be lacking tactics at top level.before sir roy came we concede 178 goals  in 3 seasons in premier league.after he came we were much harder to break down,under Jol..... easy.I won't say anymore I'm to wound up,don't give me this nonsense 'loyal fans stay till the end'else I may well get a ban from here and dont want that.

[TonyGilroy]

You don't have to believe Jol but he says that he wanted Murphy to stay and was disappointed when he left.

The club were only prepared to offer a one year contract.

Financial prudence is worthy of course but if we're losing out to competitors because we don't pay enough then we're going to be in trouble and it won't be Jol's fault.

It seems clear that we couldn't sign the players he wanted.

[General]

It seems clear that we couldn't sign the players he wanted.

The depressing definition of Ambition given by Mark hughes it seems...

[Lighthouse]

As a disillusioned pedestrian all this was painfully obvious. We were close to pushing on to be on a par with Spuds. Sold our best players and didn't replace them or all of the not very good ones either. People kept telling me trust in Jol etc etc. I think Jol has been let down as well as the rest of us. So forget about top half and me saying we can push on. This is a squad that can fight to ignore relegation. But not much more. Given a few injury problems not even that.

[alexbishop]

Really think Jol is as gutted about our transfer dealings as we are.

[Edwatch_Winston_Malone]

Relax, it is still very much early days....

[MasterHaynes]

I only watched on tv, but that was so dissapointing.
There didn't seem to be any urgency to do anything and I thought the defence was bloody awful.
I feel we've had the guts ripped out of the team and Sidwell isn't half the player Dembele is.
On the plus side, West Ham are our bogey team, and Berbatov looks absolute class to me.

Sidwell was Ok today, but no player we could afford would be half the player Dembele was. Without the release clause of £15m he would have cost in excess of £25m. I think its far too early to be all doom and gloom, there were a lot of positives in that game, Rodellaga, Berba & Kaca were all good in the 2nd half with Ruiz and Dejagah to join them.

We had more of the possesion, could have grabbed a couple and did not capitulate or concede any further goals. West ham put plenty of players behind the ball as they obviously tightened up defensively after last week and were very aware of the threat we posed. Just need to cut out giving sloppy goals away early in the match

[jazz hardrockin]

Relax, it is still very much early days....

precisely...  :047:

[dont stand me down]

Ok so we have areas of concern in the team and we address them when?

[whiteburp]

what we are missing i find serious i dont see it been put right overnight either.

[Lighthouse]

The times we are told to relax and stop moaning. Players are sold.

Relax because we will get players in to replace them.

But we don't.

We play badly.

Relax it is early days.

However we may keep on playing poorly for the reasons we gave when the players were sold.


Relax

[Edwatch_Winston_Malone]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyl5DlrsU90#

[LordNelson]

Relax, it is still very much early days....

Agree.  Don't think we can use Norwich or Spam matches as an accurate measuring stick.  However, not feeling confident at this point.

[BillNRoc]

The players we lost are much more essential to our success than the ones we brought in. Without service, Berbatov will never see a half-chance. Richardson will never make anyone forget Dembele; he'll only make us mourn Dembele's loss. As HatterDon says elsewhere, you would have thought the back 4 and keeper just introduced themselves to each other in the dressing room; they weren't great last weekend, either. And where oh where are the goals going to come from?

This is the squad we've got from now until January. The West Brom match will tell us a lot. Win that one, and we can likely stay somewhere in the middle third of the table. Fail to win, and we will likely stumble into the bottom third...about where today's midfield performance would suggest we belong. Yikes.

[Edwatch_Winston_Malone]

The players we lost are much more essential to our success than the ones we brought in. Without service, Berbatov will never see a half-chance. Richardson will never make anyone forget Dembele; he'll only make us mourn Dembele's loss. As HatterDon says elsewhere, you would have thought the back 4 and keeper just introduced themselves to each other in the dressing room; they weren't great last weekend, either. And where oh where are the goals going to come from?

This is the squad we've got from now until January. The West Brom match will tell us a lot. Win that one, and we can likely stay somewhere in the middle third of the table. Fail to win, and we will likely stumble into the bottom third...about where today's midfield performance would suggest we belong. Yikes.

We scored 5 times in our last home game and Dempsey was not even on the bench...