Neville's Comments

[hazzaffc]

At the start of the season before berbatov came we all expected to be in the top 10, dembele left and that was a big blow, but i wouldnt expect to be in a relegation scrap without dembele so the same applies to berbatov. Petric and hugo are without a doubt a solid premier league strike force. Completely disagree with neville , which is a shame because he is a top pundit

[Northern Cottager]

Nevilles getting some serious positive reviews based on his no nonsense critiques. Somehow think hes off with this one. We are no way a one man side but maybe we have less desire to be seen with the departure of the Dem's and Murphy pulling the strings.

[leonffc]

I dont see how Neville is 'against us'. I took his comments as 'we would be a poorer team without Berbatov' which is true but he also said last night that the Cottage isn't an easy place to come and play (compliment?).
He's been complimentry when ever Ive heard him talk about Fulham this season.

Merson used to slate us but seems to have mellowed a little bit but he is a Chelsea fan so you have to expect a bit of resentment.
What the complete tosser Le Tissier has against us I dont know but he is by far the most anti Fulham pundit I know of.

[Rupert]

It's an opinion. Last time I checked, we were all still allowed to hold them. Even ex-Man Utd players. As with most opinions, it is subjective. I can see why Neville thinks Berbatov is vital to our game, because from what he will have seen of our play, almost everything goes through him. Had he seen as much of our games as most of us have, he might have a different view.
Be honest, if you had to assess the chances of West Brom or Swansea or Sunderland, you would most likely focus on their better players and their importance, wouldn't you? Probably to the scorn of their faithful who would claim you had missed the merits of their young midfielder or super-sub striker. And, judging by some of the comments on here, some of our lot think Neville was not a million miles away from the "truth", so who can tell?

[AlFayedsChequebook]

It's an opinion. Last time I checked, we were all still allowed to hold them. Even ex-Man Utd players. As with most opinions, it is subjective. I can see why Neville thinks Berbatov is vital to our game, because from what he will have seen of our play, almost everything goes through him. Had he seen as much of our games as most of us have, he might have a different view.
Be honest, if you had to assess the chances of West Brom or Swansea or Sunderland, you would most likely focus on their better players and their importance, wouldn't you? Probably to the scorn of their faithful who would claim you had missed the merits of their young midfielder or super-sub striker. And, judging by some of the comments on here, some of our lot think Neville was not a million miles away from the "truth", so who can tell?

I think the issue here is that he seemingly ignored the fact that since Hodgson we have been a very solid upper-mid table side. Relegation has not been a real concern since 2008.

Berbatov is a key player, and we would be worse without him but I think it is a bit simplistic to say without him we would be relegation fight material. Unusual laziness on behalf of Neville, who is an excellent pundit. His review of the rest of the game was excellent, particularly the highlighting of Newcastle's poor defending.

[Enter the Frei]

If you take Berbatov out of our current side without replacement I'd be slightly worried about this season considering Ruiz's injury as well.

He's our best and most influential player in a mid table side, you take the best player out of most sides around mid table and they'd all be looking over their shoulder. Take our opponents last night for example; Ba's goals for them have kept them in at least a reasonable position in the table.

[FFCByTheRiver]

I agree with the point that whilst we may or may not do worse without Berbatov (who knows, lets hope we don't have to find out), it's slightly obvious of Neville to say "take away a teams best player and they won't be as good". Unusually obvious for him, the kind of comment Lawrenson comes out with each week.

[A Humble Man]

We are 7 points away from the bottom three and 6 points away from a Champions League place.  If you take out the top two and the bottom two from the League it is considerably compressed and if we had a keeper that did not make the whole defence nervous we would close the two Manchester Clubs.   Berbatov is a fantastic player but he did miss three good chances and lot of the other players in the team produce lots of snatches of real class.  We have a very talented team who when they can play at their best can anyone and be real contenders but we must get a new top class keeper as a matter of urgency.

Neville has fallen into the usual journalist hype about the top teams but the talent is very well spread across all the teams.  We beat QPR, Liverpool and Southampton we will be in the top six.

Jol again has shown his tactical genius by getting Berbatov to fill the attacking midfield role worked brilliantly and giving Roddy the loan striker role he produced his best game for Fulham by miles.  And Baird and Sidwell were great and the whole defence showed how good they were and the wing play was terrific.

Only one weakness in the team who nearly lost us a game we were dominating most of the time.  

[MartyFFC]

he's a complete idiot and like a lot of so-called pundits has his head in the clouds with the top 4, and consequently is completely ignorant to anyone else in the PL. Bottom 3 without Berba? When we have been in the top 10 the last 2 seasons? Complete tool. He even used losing AJ as a reason we would be down there which shows how much he knows; he's made of glass and spent the vast majority of his time here in the physios room. I guess he's happier when he's gushing about Man U and Fergie. BRING BACK ANDY GRAY!

[domprague]

I agree.

A few points behind where we are now? Yes, probably, and by definition that would put us on the fringes of the relegation scrap.

I think that hat's what he was getting at - not that Fulham would be relegated but that they'd be fighting it, or at least worried by the prospect.  Whereas with him it shouldn't even be a side thought.

[alfie]

We are 7 points away from the bottom three and 6 points away from a Champions League place.  If you take out the top two and the bottom two from the League it is considerably compressed and if we had a keeper that did not make the whole defence nervous we would close the two Manchester Clubs.   Berbatov is a fantastic player but he did miss three good chances and lot of the other players in the team produce lots of snatches of real class.  We have a very talented team who when they can play at their best can anyone and be real contenders but we must get a new top class keeper as a matter of urgency.

Neville has fallen into the usual journalist hype about the top teams but the talent is very well spread across all the teams.  We beat QPR, Liverpool and Southampton we will be in the top six.

Jol again has shown his tactical genius by getting Berbatov to fill the attacking midfield role worked brilliantly and giving Roddy the loan striker role he produced his best game for Fulham by miles.  And Baird and Sidwell were great and the whole defence showed how good they were and the wing play was terrific.

Only one weakness in the team who nearly lost us a game we were dominating most of the time.  

if we had a keeper that did not make the whole defence nervous we would close the two Manchester Clubs.

Is that an opinion or have you been told this, or just purely an assumption ?

[A Humble Man]

We are 7 points away from the bottom three and 6 points away from a Champions League place.  If you take out the top two and the bottom two from the League it is considerably compressed and if we had a keeper that did not make the whole defence nervous we would close the two Manchester Clubs.   Berbatov is a fantastic player but he did miss three good chances and lot of the other players in the team produce lots of snatches of real class.  We have a very talented team who when they can play at their best can anyone and be real contenders but we must get a new top class keeper as a matter of urgency.

Neville has fallen into the usual journalist hype about the top teams but the talent is very well spread across all the teams.  We beat QPR, Liverpool and Southampton we will be in the top six.

Jol again has shown his tactical genius by getting Berbatov to fill the attacking midfield role worked brilliantly and giving Roddy the loan striker role he produced his best game for Fulham by miles.  And Baird and Sidwell were great and the whole defence showed how good they were and the wing play was terrific.

Only one weakness in the team who nearly lost us a game we were dominating most of the time.   

if we had a keeper that did not make the whole defence nervous we would close the two Manchester Clubs.

Is that an opinion or have you been told this, or just purely an assumption ?

Observation, intelligence and experience.

[AlFayedsChequebook]

We are 7 points away from the bottom three and 6 points away from a Champions League place.  If you take out the top two and the bottom two from the League it is considerably compressed and if we had a keeper that did not make the whole defence nervous we would close the two Manchester Clubs.   Berbatov is a fantastic player but he did miss three good chances and lot of the other players in the team produce lots of snatches of real class.  We have a very talented team who when they can play at their best can anyone and be real contenders but we must get a new top class keeper as a matter of urgency.

Neville has fallen into the usual journalist hype about the top teams but the talent is very well spread across all the teams.  We beat QPR, Liverpool and Southampton we will be in the top six.

Jol again has shown his tactical genius by getting Berbatov to fill the attacking midfield role worked brilliantly and giving Roddy the loan striker role he produced his best game for Fulham by miles.  And Baird and Sidwell were great and the whole defence showed how good they were and the wing play was terrific.

Only one weakness in the team who nearly lost us a game we were dominating most of the time.   

if we had a keeper that did not make the whole defence nervous we would close the two Manchester Clubs.

Is that an opinion or have you been told this, or just purely an assumption ?

Observation, intelligence and experience.

You missed one - arrogance

[FFC1987]

I'm sorry to say this but Neville is probably right.

Our squad is startlingly thin this season as a result of our business during the Summer. It's quite shocking. A few of our players aren't good enough for a top-nine side or won't be with us in the long term (Diarra, Karagounis and Petric.) Last night the options available on our bench were particularly limited. Compared to our direct competition (Swansea, WBA or West Ham, for instance), it's very poor.

Over the Summer we lost three of our best players: Murphy, Dembele and Dempsey. Although these loses were unavoidable, they still removed three of the brightest sparks from our line-up and we did not replace them adequately. It's left us with, in my opinion, only four real proven sparkly/classy players in our line-up (when we probably need six or seven players of this quality in our entire squad): Berbatov, Duff, Ruiz and Hangeland. This isn't to say that the rest of our squad is poor or inadequate - they're not! Our line-up last night were all at least of top-ten quality and are good enough for us. It's just that we desperately need two or three more of these sparkly players in order to reach our potential and to guard against injuries.

The point is that Berbatov (and Ruiz while he was fit) has been our crutch this season. If we had not bought Berba or a similar player to replace those we lost, we would be in a lot of trouble this season. This is a dangerous position to be in as we're really relying on him and have no alternative crutch if he was to get injured. I agree with other posters in this thread, though, about how we might have bought another players of Berbatov's quality if he gets injured. Our success and future in the Premiership really does depend on Jol bringing in decent reinforcements in January and the Summer as well as clearing out some of the ageing wood on short term contracts.

I don't find Neville's comments insulting because sentimentality aside, they're probably true. We're relying heavily on a few quality players and our squad desperately lacks depth.

Like Mr Chequebook said, its not really inciteful because had Berbatov not come, I'm sure someone else would have and then the play would predominately go through someone else, its all hypothetical and a cheap sound bite. The fact is, we do have Berbatov and we play to his stengths which most EPL teams do. In a nutshell, Neville isn't wrong but to pin a point with so many glaringly obvious variables doesn't make him right either.

However saying that, you are spot on to mention the necessity of the January transfer market.

[Count Berbatov]

To the OP..
This is not what I heard Neville say. He rather said- thanks to Berba, they stay away from the bottom 3 or something along the line. Not that they belong to the bottom 3
A bit misleading from the OP

[God The Mechanic]

To the OP..
This is not what I heard Neville say. He rather said- thanks to Berba, they stay away from the bottom 3 or something along the line. Not that they belong to the bottom 3
A bit misleading from the OP

Yeah, I think it reads worse than it sounded on TV.

[Northern Cottager]

To the OP..
This is not what I heard Neville say. He rather said- thanks to Berba, they stay away from the bottom 3 or something along the line. Not that they belong to the bottom 3
A bit misleading from the OP

Misleading from me? Its a copy and paste job.

[Count Berbatov]

I see. I thought you also heard it on tv.

[BraveDaveFFC]

Neville is probably still sulking from the chants of "IF THE NEVILLE'S PLAY FOR ENGLAND SO CAN I" from the days at loftus road - boy, was he angry!! Him and the other chuckle brother can go to hell. SACK HIM WOY!!

[alfie]

We are 7 points away from the bottom three and 6 points away from a Champions League place.  If you take out the top two and the bottom two from the League it is considerably compressed and if we had a keeper that did not make the whole defence nervous we would close the two Manchester Clubs.   Berbatov is a fantastic player but he did miss three good chances and lot of the other players in the team produce lots of snatches of real class.  We have a very talented team who when they can play at their best can anyone and be real contenders but we must get a new top class keeper as a matter of urgency.

Neville has fallen into the usual journalist hype about the top teams but the talent is very well spread across all the teams.  We beat QPR, Liverpool and Southampton we will be in the top six.

Jol again has shown his tactical genius by getting Berbatov to fill the attacking midfield role worked brilliantly and giving Roddy the loan striker role he produced his best game for Fulham by miles.  And Baird and Sidwell were great and the whole defence showed how good they were and the wing play was terrific.

Only one weakness in the team who nearly lost us a game we were dominating most of the time.   

if we had a keeper that did not make the whole defence nervous we would close the two Manchester Clubs.

Is that an opinion or have you been told this, or just purely an assumption ?

Observation, intelligence and experience.

i have no idea of your levels of intelligence or experience, but observation, i have never seen any of our defenders even give the keeper a dodgey look let alone be nervous in front of him, what have you observed to come to this conclusion?