Reality check

[bobby01]

Looking at our first 3 games, I expected a win over Norwich,nothing at man u, nothing at wet spam, so we are on the exact points total i would expect. Sats game was a poor day at the office but we have never done well against the long ball game. Things can only get better.

[FFC1987]

Looking at our first 3 games, I expected a win over Norwich,nothing at man u, nothing at wet spam, so we are on the exact points total i would expect. Sats game was a poor day at the office but we have never done well against the long ball game. Things can only get better.

Why be rational and realistic on FoF, it makes no sense anymore....

[MrFFC]

When I looked at these fixtures I saw 4 points so we not doing too bad a win against West Brom will mean we've had a decent start

[Burt]

I saw three points (Norwich).

We are on track... We have a good squad.... We have a good manager... So long as we don't have too many off-days as we did at WHU we will be fine.

Keep the faith.

[SH47]

The doomsters really need to put the razor blades down; at least until January. We had a poor start last season, then some wild inconsistentcy and how did it end up?....... 

[twang]

We're always piss poor against the Cheats, so it's hardly a surprise that we lost at their place.

[Lighthouse]

 Fans like me who are moaning are moaning that the squad is bad compared to what it was last season. Now we can argue until the cows come home but that is how I see it. I see that we played without having a shot on goal at Sheffield and only made token efforts against West Ham. When and if Jol can wave his magic over this squad and we don't get many injury problems than we will be happy. But this is a poor squad and not a top half squad.

The results are one thing, the performance another and the team another. But for every one like me with a pack of poison to end the sorrow there are people who are dancing and skipping over the bodies in the tulips singing that we are always rubbish so that is ok then. NO IT'S NOT.

[HatterDon]

Reality check? Here's one. Our key player against Norwich was Dembele. The reason we came close to taking a point at Old Trafford was the play of Dembele. Without Dembele we were seen off by a very mediocre West Ham. We won't have Dembele for the rest of the season. Why is expressing concern about this unreal?

[rhyspabsolom]

But this is a poor squad and not a top half squad.

Rubbish.
Any squad with a spine of Schwarzer / Hangeland / Diarra / Ruiz / Berba could fancy themselves for a top half finish.

Losing Dembele hurt but it hasn't made us a poor squad and we haven't even seen our new signings yet.

And Don, Dembele was excellent in those games and would have been the deciding factor in a few games this season but not the only reason we played well.

So far we are par for the course and there's no point in being overly pessimistic / optimistic until we've seen our new team play together.

[alfie]

Reality check? Here's one. Our key player against Norwich was Dembele. The reason we came close to taking a point at Old Trafford was the play of Dembele. Without Dembele we were seen off by a very mediocre West Ham. We won't have Dembele for the rest of the season. Why is expressing concern about this unreal?

I think the fact that we did not have any choice with regards to Dembele, he/his agent envoked his get out clause to go to a "bigger club", and we can't really complain that we have not replaced him, because who do you replace him with that would want to come to Fulham

[TonyGilroy]

We have NEVER had attacking options this good.

Our defence is the same as last season with an added right back who may or may not be better than Kelly.

Midfield is a problem but we have a choice here of two defensive enforcers so as to stay tight or just the one with more attacking intent.

We should also have more pace on the wings than previously.

I think Jol's choice is whether to try to be solid or go for it although this can vary from game to game.

Unless Jol and the squad are in the same wrist cutting mood as many on here we should be fine.

[The Bronsons]

Fans like me who are moaning are moaning that the squad is bad compared to what it was last season ... But this is a poor squad ...

Two different things, really. The first is debatable. You may be right that we aren't as strong as last year - time will tell. But "a poor squad"? That's silly.

[Lighthouse]

A spine with no pace. A midfield of the same type of players. Nothing but the same type of player up front. No tall player, no speedy player.

Oh well this is what we are left with. Hope this is a squad good enough. But not a top half squad.

[MrFFC]

Berbatov is 6ft 2 ish and Rodallega has pace for sure so what the hell you on about?

[TonyGilroy]

Add the Iranian and the kids coming through and we have more pace than we've had for years.

We won't miss Dempsey in my opinion because we have excellent replacements. Dembele of course is a big miss but in truth we've only had THIS Dembele since about Christmas.

Diarra is the most Murphy like replacement we could have hoped for. Problem is that he HAS to stay fit.

[F(f)CUK]

I have friends that support both Norwich and West Ham.

Before the season started I said to the Norwich supporter that it was a bad time to play us, as Dembele would be doing his utmost to demonstrate to people that he was worth a punt.  I said to the West Ham supporter that there was not going to be a better time to play us as we had to alter our way of playing to accommodate the loss of Dembele.

United I expected to lose.

We therefore have the 3 pts that I expected.  Looking forward, we now have to use the 2 weeks off to work out how we can play without Dembele and potentially changing the formation to have 2 forwards rather than 1 up front with one sitting in the hole behind.