Sunday Fulham Stuff (25/11/12)...

[WhiteJC]

 
Fulham and Senderos suffer in the rain at Stoke

Stoke City 1-0 Fulham

THE rain fell on a forlorn Fulham who could only notch one decent effort on target – and they had to wait until the 73rd minute before that.

Dimitar Berbatov finally tested the Stoke keeper when his shot after neat interplay was parried to one side from Amir Begovic.

But it was a game Philippe Senderos might want to forget in a hurry.

The defender (pic), standing in for suspended Brede Hangeland, got caught in the eye and in the air when he failed to deal with a cross that led to the only goal of the game for Charlie Adam.


The conditions were dreadful, and keeper Mark Schwarzer gave himself a few panic attacks as the ball pinged about his box in the second half with a much changed side in front of him.

But before that, Giorgos Karagounis fired wide of the right post from distance to signal Fulham intent after two minutes, and Begovic got in a right mess when a harmless back pass went through his legs to panic the Stoke defence before the ball was cleared.

That was that as far as west London hopes for the next 20 minutes.

Stoke recovered from Begovic's heart stopper, and Senderos was a yard too slow to do anything but body-check the run from Matthew Etherington.

The Swiss earned a yellow for his indiscretion and no doubt a finger wagging from his boss at half time when he failed to jump with Peter Crouch on 26 minutes.

The big Stoke striker knocked down a cross from Ryan Shotton to find Adam who rifled home left-footed from six yards.

It would have been two had the bar not gone in the way of a Ryan Shawcross header that thumped the woodwork from Etherington's corner.

But the Stoke captain was lucky to get away scot-free when he needlessly got involved in a bust-up following a crude high leg that caught Berbatov on the back by Robert Huth.

Senderos was in the wars again when an Adam arm required the defender to get treatment for his eye, but not as much as a toothless attack that mustered little but a couple of dangerous crosses from the right.

Glenn Whelan swept over the bar straight after the break from outside the box, but Fulham had a better passage that saw Steve Sidwell go close and then Geoff Cameron booked when he baulked Ashkan Dejagah on the right.

Schwarzer had to be at his best to tip over a Huth header from a corner on the hour that would have put the game to bed.

And Berbatov made the most of the reprieve to fire in from distance before a late Kenwyne Jones effort was ruled out for offside.

Sadly, Fulham have now gone four without victory – their worst run since failing to win any of their opening six games last season, while Stoke have the division's second meanest defence. 1-0 for one of the two teams was always on the cards.



Read More http://www.fulhamchronicle.co.uk/fulham-fc/2012/11/24/82029-32299948/?#ixzz2DDPKJNJr

[WhiteJC]

 
Stoke City's Charlie Adam proves the difference against Fulham

Charlie Adam scored the winner for a second successive home fixture as Stoke defeated Fulham to extend their good run at the Britannia Stadium. His first had been the decisive strike in the previous home match – the 1-0 win over QPR. Stoke are now unbeaten in 13 games on their own turf in the league, stretching back to February.

Tony Pulis's side, who were the better team overall this afternoon and nearly had another goal when Ryan Shawcross headed against the bar, now have three victories to their name this season and are up to 11th in the table on 16 points. Fulham, meanwhile, stay ninth and are now winless in their past five games.

However, the Stoke manager was disappointed his side could not convert the chances they had to put themselves "out of sight". "I'm disappointed we have not won the game by more goals," Pulis said. "Even just looking at the first half, if you look at the chances, Robert [Huth] has missed a point-blank header from a corner and Ryan hits the bar when he is almost under the goal. There were some great opportunities and in the second half we had more. Then in the last few minutes, you are starting to scramble."

In driving rain, it was the visitors who made the brighter start, with Giorgos Karagounis lashing an effort across goal and wide on two minutes. There was a shaky moment soon after for Stoke as their goalkeeper Asmir Begovic misread a back pass, but the ball was cleared away and the home side began to settle down.

Huth headed the clearest opportunity yet wide from Matthew Etherington's corner on the quarter-hour mark and the Potters continued to put on the pressure, with Adam sending the ball over after juggling it in the area. Moments later though the Scotland midfielder scored, taking one touch in the six-yard box when Peter Crouch headed Ryan Shotton's cross his way before swivelling and firing the ball in. Shawcross then almost made it 2-0 in the 36th minute when he clattered a header against the bar.

Stoke looked eager to wrap things up as the second half got under way but frustrated their manager with missed opportunities. Martin Jol admitted his side had struggled. "In the second half we did better. In the first half it was exactly the same as it is for most of the teams here, and probably how it was for us last year," the Fulham manager said.

"We couldn't get out of our half. We still wanted to play, but it was difficult and then you get the long balls and they pressurise you and play their style."



http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/nov/24/stoke-city-fulham-premier-league?

[WhiteJC]

 
Crewe 2-0 Crawley

Lauri Dalla Valle 62,65

Lauri Dalla Valle's second-half brace secured a 2-0 win for Crewe and left Crawley without a league success in six games.


Dalla Valle: Bagged a brace

Crewe could have been behind straight from the kick-off in Saturday's League One clash at Gresty Road, but Matt Tootle blocked Michael Jones' goalbound backheel and Gary Alexander drove the loose ball against the post.

The Alex regained their composure and Nicky Adams provided some quality deliveries for the visitors, but Mark Connolly and Alexander failed to find the finishing touches with the goal at their mercy.

Matt Tootle dragged a shot wide from 25 yards for Crewe, Dalla Valle was off target with a rasping volley and Mark Ellis saw a goalbound header clawed away by Paul Jones and Luke Murphy crashed the rebound against the crossbar.

But the home side took control when Dalla Valle headed in Murphy's 50th-minute free-kick. The on-loan striker doubled his account five minutes later when Chuks Aneke's superb through-ball found Moore and the winger centred to give Dalla Valle an easy finish.

Dalla Valle fired over, Murphy shot wide, Abdul Osman headed over and Pogba chipped into the sidenetting as Crewe failed to extend their lead despite dominating the entire second half.



http://www.sportinglife.com/football/live/match-report/262922/dalla-valle-at-double-for-alex?

[WhiteJC]

 
Fulham 'bullied' by Stoke claims Jol

FULHAM manager Martin Jol reckoned his side had been 'bullied' to a 1-0 defeat by Stoke this afternoon.

A physical City side gave no quarter in the tough encounter – made all the tougher by swirling wind and rain at The Britannia.

But in fact, there were only two bookings in the game, the first to a Fulham defender, Philippe Senderos, and the second to Stoke's Geoff Cameron for a needless check on Ashkan Dejagah.

What incensed Jol were some tasty tackles that got left unpunished including a studs-high challenge to the back of Dimitar Berbatov that saw Ryan Shawcross get involved in the ensuing spat, with neither Stoke man added to referee Michael Oliver's notebook.

Jol said: "You know their style and it's not easy to play here.

"First half they bullied us and all credit to them. The second half was much better and we played our football.

"But in the first half it looked as if we were the rugby team and making the fouls.

"But I'm a bit cynical. They have their big men. Even Charlie Adam is bigger than some of ours, but to beat Stoke you have to play the better football."

His opposite number reckoned Fulham had been easy to deal with until the closing moments.

Tony Pulis said: "It was only the last 10 minutes that Fulham came back into it. They had a lot of possession – but very few chances."

The defeat, that saw four Fulham regulars out through injury or suspension, leaves the Whites winless in the last five games with three draws and two defeats.



http://www.ealinggazette.co.uk/sport/fulham-fc-ealing/2012/11/24/82029-32301204/?

[WhiteJC]

 
Stoke 1-0 Fulham

The sort of game that makes you want to kick a dustbin. Fulham, so lively and so bright in recent times, stunned by the usual mess from Stoke, a team of trees that is always greater than the sum of its parts, always seems to have extra players on the pitch. Stoke seem to fill every area, and Fulham's players rarely found space until a frenetic last ten minutes when we threw the kitchen sink into proceedings. And even then there wasn't really anywhere to construct anything, as Stoke were packed deep and determined.

It's hard to know what Martin Jol might have done differently. Without Ruiz the team tried a moderately successful approach that involved Baird, Sidwell and Karagounis in the middle and Berbatov and Petric up front. Dejagah was the true winger in all this.

But the trouble was, we couldn't settle on the ball, despite having all these midfielders. Stoke eventually scored a very Stoke like goal, a deep cross knocked down by Peter Crouch and swivelled on by an advanced Charlie Adam. It's not a goal you'd want to concede and it was a shame that Crouch wasn't troubled more, but this is what Stoke do so well. The disappointment is more that we weren't able to impose ourselves on them at all, which meant that Begovic had absolutely nothing to do until some late efforts from Berbatov and Petric, the latter in particular making us wonder what might have been: a devilish swirling shot that Begovic didn't like one bit and spilled.

By then we had Duff on, Rodallega too, but there wasn't enough exact football in the final third, mainly because Stoke were defending well. What do you do? We have no big target man, that'd be playing into their hands anyway, so the only option was to keep trying to play. Perhaps we might have tried to go through the middle more, and Sidwell's occasional bursts hinted at something, but it didn't feel like there were any good answers. We had most of the ball but just couldn't make anything happen.

We defender okay too. Tony Gale in commentary seemed keen to adopt the fashionable "Senderos is an accident waiting to happen line" whenever Stoke attacked but he didn't look so bad to me. An average performance in trying circumstances. And Stoke only had two shots on target all game (so did we, of course), so there's that, too.

You have to look at these games in isolation and in context of others. In isolation it's a tight defeat at a difficult place to go. In context it's another game without getting what we want, but at this point nobody need worry – we'll start winning again soon.



http://cravencottagenewsround.wordpress.com/2012/11/24/stoke-1-0-fulham/?