FFC's survival blueprint by Phil Mison

[Ged]

FFC's survival blueprint
Posted by Phil Mison
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Fulham has not replaced Clint Dempsey - or his crucial goals.
I pinned notification this week that Fulham are now weaker across seven positions than when Mark Hughes walked out on the club in 2011. Here's my reasoning.

Keeper: Nothing against Mark, securing him on a free in '08 was one of the smartest bits of business dear old Woy did on behalf of the club. He has saved us many times since with outstandingly unflappable displays. Quite simply, the march of time has caught up with him. There's nothing Mark can do about that, but Fulham must forget sentiment and secure a top line replacement in the summer. I think we all know who that is likely to be.

LB: Carlos Salcido came too late in his career, but we just about got away with his one season in white. However, for a fee of £2million John Arne Riise has been a major disappointment. The sharp-shooting from distance has gone, his mobility when being run at with pace makes him a liability and his own ability to get down the flanks to hurt opponents diminishes by the month. Will be moved on this summer for sure, but I'm not certain he deserves to be starting for the crucial 12 game run in.

CB: The need to sign a commanding CB has been identified by the club from more than a year ago. We all thought it was going to be Twente's Douglas, but the club gambled they might get away with it for another season. By his high standards, Aaron Hughes has started to show his age, while doubts remain over Brede's long term commitment to the club. By failing to find cover at the heart of defence, Fulham have had to turn to Senderos. While he has now clocked up 100 starts in the EPL, never gives less than 100 per cent and provides an aerial threat at set pieces, if anyone across the back four is going to come up with a game-changing error, it's likely to be our Swiss international.

MF: It is hard not to be critical of the club for the way our midfield has been decimated. For this exercise I will say we urgently need one midfielder of stature to anchor the whole team. A captain, a leader, a playmaker, a tough tackling no-nonsense player of real class who provides the heartbeat of the side. But the way Fulham mishandled the departures of Murphy, Dembele and Dempsey without any strategy to replace such key individuals means we now find ourselves dogged by the spectre of a battle to avoid relegation. You could argue we need more than one fresh face here.

Wingers: From his arrival onwards Martin Jol emphasised his desire to play with pacy wingers. Should we lay the lack of progress from our academy graduates at his door? Is it down to coaching? Maybe they are just not up to it. But there have been enough transfer windows to address the problem, and signing Kieran Richardson is no solution. As a consequence, for the final 12 games to decide our fate, FFC still have nobody to run the flanks in a manner that can unsettle teams. Two more positions therefore where we have come up short in this difficult season.

CF: Finally, we turn to the man to fill the boots of our departed, and much-missed top scorer. Nobody quite knows how to label Clint. He wasn't a winger, nor a conventional midfielder, certainly he wouldn't himself say he was a striker. But by golly, he offered so much more in the box than any of our current crop. Again, the club failed to hang on to three players from last season who knew where the goal was - Zamo, the Pog and Deuce. Anyone here now to fill those boots? Emphatically not.

Is it therefore any wonder we have really gone downhill so rapidly since October? This weekend for the first time I took a hard look at our run-in. I have a really bad feeling about this, even though we look to be sitting comfortably mid-table with 29 points in the 2nd week of February. As Mokey writes, where are the points coming from to get us up to 40?

Let's start with our away games. Even before you factor in how dreadful the Whites are on their travels, we know the side cannot win at Everton or Spurs. Swansea are three-and-zero in our three games since they came up - in two of those we have been played off the park. Do you imagine long trips to Sunderland and Newcastle with a handful of supporters will be easy, both clubs fighting for their own lives? And then there's Aston Villa. Another ground where Fulham historically never win. Benteke to grab the winner anyone as Fulham fail yet again to test the keeper? That game has massive significance.

Let's get on to the home games to cheer ourselves up. Sure, fortress Cottage is where we'll do the business. Stoke next up. Based on past results, everyone seems to think this is three points in the bag. It sure needs to be, because two bad results on the spin and we could be down in 16th by the end of the month. Anybody seriously imagine a Pulis side is going to turn up and give you an easy game?

So the wild-eyed optimists over at FoF point to those two nailed on home wins heading our way from the visits of QPR and Reading, conveniently forgetting that we've failed to beat either so far this season. By the time Rangers arrive, they will man-for-man have one of the stronger teams in the league on paper and their manager is far better equipped to get a result from them than our own, despite their shortcomings. Perhaps by the time they arrive, Rangers may just have given up the ghost. Pray that's so, because this could well be another game - like Villa - full of tension where the nerves take over. And if Fulham are on the slide by this stage, how much more of a six-pointer will Reading become? They are far from anybody's pushover - just ask Chelsea.

As for the other three visitors still to come down to the Cottage - Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool - they are all sides we can beat on the day when raising our game. But if confidence starts draining away, I suggest Fulham are going to need a monumental performance somewhere along the line, replicating the feats at Pompey and Man City in recent years, if we are not to slip back into the Championship. It might just be two more wins and a clutch of draws from here on in.

Will we stay up? Let's come back to that after the Stoke game. But on paper, that run in has a horrible look about it right now.

[TonyGilroy]

Everybody's run in is terrible. At least we've played both Manchester clubs.

[cmg]

Not being a Tweeting kind of person, I have no idea who Phil Mison is (exponent of Balearic, electronica and ambient musical genres according to Wiki, which makes me very little the wiser) but this is not a 'survival blueprint'. It is merely a reasonably accurate statement of our present shortcomings, of which most of us are only too painfully aware.

A blueprint provides answers - this does not, except to suggest we need to win a few more matches to be totally sure of avoiding relegation.

[Northern Cottager]

I dont udnerstand the emphasis on Murphys departure. Dembele and Dempsey I understand but why Murphy? He was poor for us the season he left and I was less than distraught when he left, he went at the right time and the club made the right decision.

Agree with above, blueprint is the wrong word for this.

Oh and Riise has not been that much of a liability either. Not amazing but not that bad.

[Lighthouse]

Seems bang on the money for me.

Murphy was way passed his best but we never found any replacement.

We were a jigsaw with a few tatty bits we had to work hard to find a way to fit. But you could tell what the picture was. Now the jigsaw is missing pieces and we have lost the box cover to tell what the picture is supposed to be. Frankly an ugly waste of a season.

[cmg]

Seems bang on the money for me.

Murphy was way passed his best but we never found any replacement.

We were a jigsaw with a few tatty bits we had to work hard to find a way to fit. But you could tell what the picture was. Now the jigsaw is missing pieces and we have lost the box cover to tell what the picture is supposed to be. Frankly an ugly waste of a season.

Yes.

We were right to let Murph go - wrong not to line up a replacement. Even super optimists like me can see this, which, with the departure of Dembele, has effectively neutered our midfield, as a strategic failure of management.


The only mitigating factor is that replacements of Murphy's quality are very very hard to find and/or very very expensive. We may have thought that we had a young replacement lined up (Minkwitz?) but this turns out not to have been the case.

[Ged]

Not being a Tweeting kind of person, I have no idea who Phil Mison is (exponent of Balearic, electronica and ambient musical genres according to Wiki, which makes me very little the wiser) but this is not a 'survival blueprint'. It is merely a reasonably accurate statement of our present shortcomings, of which most of us are only too painfully aware.

A blueprint provides answers - this does not, except to suggest we need to win a few more matches to be totally sure of avoiding relegation.

About the Author
Phil Mison
Phil's Fulham mad Dad took him to his first game aged seven and stood him on an orange box at the Hammersmith End behind the goal. He was hooked for life, but discarded the orange box at 11. As a broadcaster, writer and sports producer he has supplied past club videos and numerous articles on FFC. LBC Radio's Fulham correspondent 1988-1993 and Sky Sports' reporter for the 1996-97 promotion season. Professionally Phil delivers football content to the highest level both to a global audience UK via TV, radio and digital media. You can follow him on twitter @fulhamphil

[LRCN]

if he gets paid for this espn got robbed. about as much insight as a blind man describing the mona lisa.

[fulhamphil]

if he gets paid for this espn got robbed. about as much insight as a blind man describing the mona lisa.

Just for clarification. I am not to be confused with a mixmaster DJ of the same name. I have no idea what 'Balearic beats' are.

The article was written for ESPN's website, and far from being robbed, this is my third season as their FFC blogger. We have increased traffic enormously to the site in that time. Care to visit and review the number of posts since the Norwich game and you will see the bigger picture. Of course, most of our readership is coming from the USA, but the ESPN club bloggers are all solid UK writers working through the Hammersmith office of ESPN's HQ in the UK. Unfortunately our copy is subject to review by staff in the US before going live, who have a bad habit of changing the top line. This article was submitted under the title, "Where FFC have gone backwards." It is not a blueprint for anything and was not written as such. My piece from Norwich, "Dont' Shoot! It's only a game," also got cut - the Yanks are currently ultra-sensitive on gun issues.
Finally, it is for the FoF mods to decide if they want to aggregate my stuff and stick it up on this site. White Noise has regularly done so in the past. I never ask for it, but I'm quite happy with the exposure. That's why journalists write.
Ignore or respond to my material here or at ESPNFC, it's all fine by me. Just please don't shoot the messenger without knowing the facts.

[A Humble Man]

In our last three games we have played well with a solidity at the back we have not shown all season and have a dangerous and classy midfield and forward line who will score goals.

We are on the way up not on the way down as this pessimistic tosh implies.  

Why are so many Fulham fans so morbid?

[RaySmith]

Agree with A Humble Man - this  post is far too pessimistic, implying, as it does, that Fulham have had a sudden decline in performance unmatched in their Prem history.

We have had many worse squads and equally bad runs -this last bad run now having ended, hopefully -than at present.

Of course, relegation is a possiblity - but it always is, at the start of every season, for Fulham - along with a number of clubs.

If Jol and the team were this pessimistic, we might as well all give up. Yes, we could go down , but we could also play our way into a top ten finish.

Yes, constructive criticism is  to be applauded, but we should all also get behind Jol and the team - which now contains many top class players - probably more so tha most of Fulham's time in the Prem.

[cmg]

Just for clarification. I am not to be confused with a mixmaster DJ of the same name. I have no idea what 'Balearic beats' are.

Fair enough, Phil. Pity really as I was looking forward to extending my musical education with some insights on 'Balearic ambient electronica' (sounds like the latest Latin pronouncement from the Vatican).

It was to the headline that my mild criticism was leveled, rather than the content.

Glad to welcome another Fulham fan to the fold.

[BillNRoc]

As a fan in the US who posts at Phil's blog as well as here, I have to say some important context is missing when you look at one piece in isolation. Maybe we look with different preferences - and without a lifetime's loyalty to 'our club' right or wrong - but we've been aghast by many of the 'performances' FFC have put in. I took no comfort from 1 point at Norwich, because it was a pretty dreadful display by both sides, if good football is what you want.

In our last three games we played well? Only if you leave out the last one, in which the "offense" was back to little/no creativity and few chances, much as it was for most of November and December. Maybe the short-term injection of Emanuelson will propel us to better offense and enough points to stay up, with the player well beyond our means to keep. But Phil is right, in my view - you can excuse lack of preparation for losing Dembele, but the management also failed to replace Murphy and Dempsey with a whole summer to come up with some options. We've seen some flashes in MF from Diarra and Kara, but we can also see why the bigger clubs no longer wanted them; they're worn down, past it, can't be counted on for a run of games. Coupled with inconsistency at the back and on the wings, it's a recipe for wondering where 40 points will come from. It's a good thing we probably won't need 40 to stay up, since I'm not sure we can get them.

[Snibbo]

Another doom and gloom piece as far as I'm concerned. Certainly isn't a blueprint.

You could probably look at any one of 10-15 Premier League clubs, and say that they are weaker in certain positions than last year.

What does it prove, except that all but the top 4-6 can afford to strengthen / maintain each year, whilst the rest struggle to replace the players they've inevitably lost.

[horse1031]

Welcome to the forum Phil!!!

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Your insight on Fulham would be good to have on the messageboard on a regular basis.  I enjoy your Fulham blogs on ESPN and have been reading them for a couple years now.  You say where are the 40 points going to come from?  My thought is that we will limp to the finish line but grab a couple scalps along the way.  It will be on par with the rest of the season.  We have had some good performances, mostly some uninspired performances, and some terrible stuff.  I think we need a center mid so badly.  If we could get a decent one in we could be in for a good year next year.  Martin Jol is such a polarizing figure and that makes life at Fulham very interesting for a fan.  Can he take this team to the next level?

[LRCN]

x

i am aware your column is ongoing. i've read it before. but as i say, i think it is flawed and uninspired. but each to their own and fair play if others enjoy it. i have no intention of censoring it.

anyway, as you were.

[bulgariawhite]

Fair play to your views, but why are we talking survival. We have spent 12 consecutive seasons in this league and are now established. We can look down our current squad, and it doesn't take a genius to find areas we need to improve. However, we have players full of skill to maintain our position, it is just a case of getting them to play in a system that suits their skills. Yes we are having a difficult up and down season, that worries fans who had bigger expectations. It is obvious with the influx of youth players that the board have a blueprint for the future. I like that idea and am willing to support it. We are financially secure and why buy our way out of a mediocre situation that just hasn't reached the levels of performance that the past seasons have bought for fans to expect.
We have nothing to worry about. Trust in the squad, the future looks bright

[JackyFulham90]

I don't think the run in is bad 3 winnable away games, also we can beat any team we have left at home

[sunburywhite]

I thought a blueprint was a plan

[fulhamphil]

Welcome to the forum Phil!!!

Thanks horse. Will try to find time from my other two FFC blog platforms to post when I can. I am humbled to read moderator Lork will not censor my views.
Memo to self: After 25 years at this game if only I could learn to make my copy less 'flawed and uninspiring.'

Haynes The Maestro: