Sunday Fulham Stuff (08/03/15)...

[WhiteJC]

 
Fulham 'couldn't get going' – Symons

Fulham boss Kit Symons blamed the 5-1 thrashing at the hands of Bournemouth on his players' failure to match the intensity of recent performances.

The Whites were comprehensively routed at Craven Cottage, with Fernando Amorebieta sent off and Matt Smith scoring his first Fulham goal.

It was a complete reversal of the display against Derby, whom they beat 2-0, and was also well short of their performance in defeat at Watford.

Symons said: "All I can put it down to is three games in a week against three top sides.

"We managed to get ourselves up for the first two but we couldn't get going at all tonight. It looked like a top-against-bottom clash.

"Bournemouth were very good but I'm bitterly disappointed with our performance."

Symons admitted his side were still very much in a relegation battle, despite a gap of eight points to the bottom three.

He added: "Until we're mathematically safe we're going to be conscious of what's below us.

"No-one is under any illusions. Everyone knows where we are. It's a slight cushion but it's nowhere near enough points."

Ashley Richards missed the game against Bournemouth with an ankle injury but is expected to be fit for the trip to Sheffield Wednesday next Saturday.


http://www.westlondonsport.com/fulham/fulham-couldnt-get-going-symons?

[WhiteJC]

 
Grant's Assessment

Fulham Under-21s boss Peter Grant was left feeling frustrated following a 3-1 defeat at Manchester City in the Barclays Premier League on Friday afternoon.

The Whites started slowly and Grant felt that was key to his side's defeat, stating: "Frustration is the biggest thing because we started too slow in the first half, there was not enough energy, not enough carefulness with our passing, which we pride ourselves on. Sometimes you've got to credit the opposition but today I can't, I just thought it was our boys giving the ball away too easily, making the wrong choices."

Despite going 2-0 down after City scored a second from the spot, a decision Grant had no qualms about, Fulham got back into the tie through Ange-Freddy Plumain and it looked as if they would take something away from the fixture.

"In the second half we got a lift when we got the goal and I thought there was only going to be one winner, but we didn't take our chances," continued Grant. "If you look at their three goals, they're all errors. We lost the game in the first half not the second."

The former Norwich City boss raised an eyebrow after seeing the opposition reduced to 10 men in the first half but had no complaints about Liam Donnelly seeing red for a second bookable offence late on.

"I was very surprised, the referee made errors which we all do," said Grant. "I think he was left with no choice with Liam, he made two or three fouls after the yellow, so it was a red for persistent fouling."

The Scotsman felt his side were perhaps overawed at their opponents, something that disappointed him: "We played against a jersey more than a team, that worried me a bit because you've got to go out six foot tall and not worry about the opposition, worry about how you play, never fear the opposition. If you fear the opposition, you'll never survive in football. After a talking to at half-time I thought we changed it, we did the simple things better."

The defeat leaves Fulham near the bottom of a tight-looking table, but Grant highlighted the importance of developing the players.

"You always want to be top and if you win it you're delighted," he added. "We've got a lot of good players in the squad that can be involved in the First Team and it's more important that they can do that quickly and how they can get there and stay there. It's more important to produce players and give the manager a headache in years to come. Of course, we want to win every game and I hate losing, but we're not going to produce a team, we're going to produce footballers."


http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2015/march/07/grants-assessment?

[WhiteJC]

 
Smith: Hard Work Ahead

Stepping out on to the Craven Cottage pitch has been a long time coming for Matt Smith but, despite marking his home debut with a goal, the landmark occasion is one he wants to quickly move on from.

Over six months after his summer transfer deadline day signing in August 2014, the 25-year-old finally made his bow in SW6 as a half-time substitute for Hugo Rodallega with the Whites trailing AFC Bournemouth 2-0.

Either side of a two-month loan spell at Sky Bet League One outfit Bristol City, where he netted 14 goals in 20 games, Smith's four Whites appearances had all been on the road.

But any joy from his first outing down by the Thames was short lived. After his strike pulled the score back to 3-1, Fulham fell to a 5-1 defeat as the Cherries moved to the top of the Championship.

"It wasn't the way I wanted my Craven Cottage debut to go, with a defeat like that," Smith told fulhamfc.com

"Collectively we know that that was simply way off it. It was not good enough. We need to readdress the situation and work even harder on the training ground to put things right.

"It was my first game at Craven Cottage and my minutes have been limited for Fulham since I arrived so it was a good opportunity to get out there and try to make an impact and I thought the signs were looking good at first, but, collectively, you can't defend in the manner we did."

Linking up with Ross McCormack on the goal, and again with his former Leeds United teammate to create another good chance, Smith made his presence felt both in the air and on the ground.

But a 69th-minute red card for Fernando Amorebieta, judged to have been the last man when tripping Callum Wilson, signalled the end of any sort of fight-back.

"After the red card, obviously there was no way back but I don't think you can point fingers at that, or point fingers at defenders," Smith continued.

"Collectively, as a group, you have to defend as a unit and we didn't do that. The disappointing thing was obviously the manner of the goals. We need to make a vast improvement and I'm sure there will be."

Fulham will have to wait a week before they can move on from this humbling, and Smith insists, if he is called upon from the start at Sheffield Wednesday, he is ready for action.

"Of course I am," he added. "The purpose of me going out on loan was to get my match fitness back after a couple of months on the sidelines. I feel fit and sharp now and I just want to keep on scoring and keep on playing."



http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2015/march/07/smith-reaction?

[WhiteJC]

 
AFC Bournemouth Replay

Here is the full match replay from Friday evening at Craven Cottage, as AFC Bournemouth were the visitors.

Subscribe to Fulham FC's Official YouTube channel for exclusive features and match highlights.


http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2015/march/07/bournemouth-replay?

[WhiteJC]

 
Smith - 'It was not good enough'

Fulham striker Matt Smith has admitted that his side's 5-1 defeat to Bournemouth in the Championship was "simply not good enough".

Despite signing in the summer, Smith only made his debut at Craven Cottage on Friday night after spending the majority of the season on loan at Bristol City. He marked his first home appearance with a goal but Fulham were well beaten in the end. The Cherries moved top of the Championship at Fulham's expense and Smith has urged his side to improve in the next few weeks. He told the club's official website: "It wasn't the way I wanted my Craven Cottage debut to go, with a defeat like that. "Collectively we know that that was simply way off it. It was not good enough. We need to readdress the situation and work even harder on the training ground to put things right. "It was my first game at Craven Cottage and my minutes have been limited for Fulham since I arrived so it was a good opportunity to get out there and try to make an impact and I thought the signs were looking good at first, but, collectively, you can't defend in the manner we did. "We need to make a vast improvement and I'm sure there will be."



Read more at: https://www.clubcall.com/championship/smith---it-was-not-good-enough-1761564.html?

[WhiteJC]

 
What Is Going On At Fulham Football Club?

Once upon a time, Fulham FC were Premier League stalwarts. Now they sit 20th in the Championship. What!? How!?

So why is this a big deal?
Fulham are a London club with a billionaire owner. In the world of football there are so many variables you cannot control, location is one of them. But being a London club in location stakes is the footballing version of Willy Wonka's golden ticket. If it's not obvious it should be. London, regardless of your thoughts on it is a Mecca for people with money. It is a global city with endless opportunities to distract yourself and spend cash. Things like this are valuable selling points when signing a big player.

But of course signing a big player isn't even a possibility unless you've got cash to spend. And Fulham do. They are owned by Shahid Khan a Pakistani-American billionaire. In September of last year his net worth was valued at $4.6 billion.

So in short, it's inexcusable really what is going on in SW6. They have all the resources a club looking to bounce back from relegation should need and yet they are just about keeping their heads above water. This season will require a great escape on a par with the 2007/08 escape that kick started a wonderful period under Roy Hodgson.

So who is to blame?
Kit Symons is the current manager but that's likely to change given results this season. Can he be blamed? No, not really. Symons' only managerial experience prior to the Fulham job was as a temporary caretaker manager for Crsytal Palace and Colchester. A club looking to bounce back should probably have gone for proven Championship experience in this case. That mistake is now costing them.

In fact it's obvious really who is to blame for Fulham's troubles. Since Khan has taken over, things have been in a permanent slide. Sacking Martin Jol was probably wise but the appointment of Rene Meulensteen was not. Rene, from his time with United is clearly a very smart football man. He was not however a suitable manager. Meulensteen had an ego that wouldn't shut up and it cost him a job and Fulham some vital points that could have staved off relegation.

Burnt from that decision, Khan headed to the opposite end of the experience spectrum when he appointed Felix Magath. But the decision had the hallmarks of an owner who was new to football. Magath is successful. Magath had never been relegated. Magath was a tactics man, a game-plan man. And yet he was not the right man for the job. On the surface it was the right appointment for Khan but it was a decision that lacked context. Magath's success stretched back to a time gone by. He is a difficult man at the best of times and given the time constraints the club were under to get results, his appointment was actually a huge risk. One that didn't pay off.

Mohammed Al-Fayed was never the richest owner. His grandiose statement in 1997 that Fulham would be "the Manchester united of the South" was naive and before the Abramovich era. It never happened, but he ran a steady ship. In retrospect, what he did was incredibly impressive. Khan has failed in his tenure as owner so far. If Fulham are lucky, he'll sell them to someone who cares and can afford them. Given their current trajectory, they could cost a whole lot less to any suitors in June, should the be relegated to League One.

So what is going on at Fulham? Bad management from the top down. It has trickled into every facet of the club. Shahid Khan is a rich and successful man, but the business of sport is one he should have avoided. Any fans of his NFL franchise, the Jacksonville Jaguars can attest to that.

Then again, maybe it's all to do with the removal of Michael Jackson's statue from Craven Cottage? If only it were that simple.


http://www.punditarena.com/football/english-football/thepateam/going-fulham-football-club/?

[WhiteJC]

 
What to make of it all? 19 reasons why it might or might not be Kit Symons fault

The shadow of Roy Hodgson looms large over each of his successors. Under Hodgson the Fulham fans enjoyed unprecedented success, but also learned about the game, saw what it meant to be organised in defence and to construct attacks carefully through pre-configured movements, attacks in which all players knew where all other players were at all times and so could switch the ball back, forth, left and right, quickly, slowly, but always deliberately.

You'll recall that shortly before Hodgson's time we saw Chris Coleman's brand of optimistic pragmatism, in which the best players he could find would be inspired into as effective a brand of coincidence football as Coleman could muster. Coincidence football is a mean and derogatory term, but one I think of as referring to teams that don't really have many ideas, which succeed or fail based on coincidences going their way within a match.  Hodgson's control frequently took luck out of the equation: Fulham generally beat the teams they were meant to under him (not always, but usually) and failed against the teams they were meant to lose to  (not always but usually), with that calibration gradually nudging upwards as we got used to better and better teams.

Coleman had his moments because football managers given any time in the job will have their moments, but his football was generally unimaginative.

Kit Symons has a bit in common with Coleman, lately in the way his team is playing. The game has moved on since Coleman was managing Fulham and now the team generally tries to 'play the right way', but on Friday night's evidence is doing so without conviction, a plan, or the ability to turn the lack of these into something coherent.  Symons has done so much right since given the job full-time, and I believe that on the whole his team selection has been pretty good (he has picked his strongest team, more or less, with tweaks here and there along the way that seem reasonable enough).

But equally he has had long enough now to have imprinted a style or a philosophy on the team, and frankly it's not there.  Thing is, he has been at the club since 2009, so would have seen how things operated back then.  It's not like he doesn't know what made for a successful side, is it?  Maybe he's being his own man, doing this his own way?  Maybe you can't just copy another manager's style.  But – and I've said this over and over – organising a team to defend seems to be a minimal requirement, but we haven't been able to do this for years.  Why?

Symons' ascent has been pretty quick.  In late 2009 he said:

"Ever since I left I have kept strong ties here and still had a lot friends at the Club, so it was a natural move for me to come back. Barry Simmonds (Head of Scouting), who I knew from my time at Crystal Palace approached me and asked whether I would be interested in doing some casual scouting for the First Team and I was doing that up until the summer.

This year I'd started to do a little bit more and then in the last month I took the position of Academy Coach, so I'm over-the-moon at the moment. I'm working across the whole of the Academy, although predominantly I'll be working with the U14s upwards."
It would be unfair to say that Symons has lucked into this role. Football is full of jobs for the boys appointments and there's nothing unusual about an old player coming back to work with the younger teams.  Symons obviously performed his tasks pretty well but there's nothing in his track record to suggest that he ought to be considered a viable candidate for what he's doing at this moment.  Yes, his audition for the role was going well enough that he seemed the only reasonable (temporary) choice at the time, but he hasn't done anything really to make us think that his success was much more than "anyone but Magath."

What should have been achieved?  We know that Symons inherited a squad short on confidence, bemused by its leader.  It's not beyond the realms of possibility that Magath's early fitness work is costing us now.  But it also looked like a squad that a canny manager might have used better than Symons has.

Or are we falling into an old trap, here?  Are we evaluating players on what they've done before, not what they're doing now?  Watching Bournemouth last night was a lesson in not judging reputations, after all.  Instead we saw a well coached team playing with confidence. Fulham had a number of players with a big reputation, but nothing to knit them together.

Let's look more closely:

Bettinelli in goal is a youngster who's impressed many.  But he's playing because the club let David Stockdale leave for Brighton. True, Stockdale at Brighton hasn't been a marriage made in heaven, but this was a problem that didn't need to happen.

Tim Hoogland played Champions League football recently.

Nikolay Bodurov has played regularly for Bulgaria.

Shaun Hutchinson doesn't have a pedigree as such but is keeping Dan Burn out of the side, an Burn has Championship experience with Birmingham in which he was generally thought to be playing well.

Fernando Amorebieta has played at a much higher level.

Scott Parker looked dead on his feet in the Premier League, but more effective in the Championship.  My sense is that he's had an up-and-down season which suggests time running out, and my suspicion remains that the good we see him do is probably outweighed by some of the negative things we don't really see (I worry that someone with his obvious lack of athleticism can't really perform in the role he plays).

Ryan Tunnicliffe has a pedigree of sorts and is thought to be a reasonable player.

Sean Kavanagh is a youngster making his way in the game.

Bryan Ruiz, Hugo Rodallega and Ross McCormack feel like they should be playing for a team at the top of the table, not at the bottom.

Surely there's enough talent there to fashion a half-decent side?  Or not: research in the otherwise overrated "The Numbers Game" suggested that football teams are generally about as good as their *weakest* players, not their strongest. So it's all well and good having 5-6 really good players, but what if you have 4-5 who really aren't up to it?  You'll lose a lot of games.  I'm not sure we do have 4-5 who really aren't up to it, but nor am I confident that this isn't the case. Equally, the good players might not be as good now as they were when their reputations were established.  In many ways this almost has to be the case: the players listed above are too good to be near the bottom of the championship.

So our diagnosis:

1) a manager who's probably near enough to the 'do no harm' level that he isn't the biggest problem here.

The chart here shows that the vast majority of premier league managers (including Chris Coleman and Roy Hodgson) win about a third of their games, and this has been Symons' level too, albeit in the Championship.  So while he's been slightly frustrating in his inability to make more out of what looks like a talented squad...

2) the squad almost can't be as good as we'd hoped.  The fringe players haven't stepped up, the name players aren't what they were.  It's a bad combination, and the opposite of what we saw from Bournemouth last night.

3) the latter is perplexing.  Ross McCormack's track record is so strong that it almost felt he'd be able to get us into the playoffs alone.  But again we are operating with a defence protecting a young goalkeeper (a star in the making perhaps, but a young goalkeeper nevertheless) and protected by a player whose first appeared to have gone at least 18 months ago (a great team man, a wonderful addition in so many ways, but maybe not exactly what's needed in this team at this time?).  If you can't defend, nothing much else matters, and Fulham have shown over and over that they can't defend.  Last night was a perfect example: for one thing, any semi-competent team doesn't concede five goals in a game, and not several times a season.  The goal when the Bournemouth forward ran from half-way was the embodiment of a machine not operating properly: that simply can't happen at any level (although it should be noted that Roy Hodgson's Switzerland suffered against Spain in the 1994 World Cup when a forward played a through ball to himself and scored, so there's that)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX4KH5ZjalM#t=11

All of which leads me to wonder what Fulham needs to do next. Taking a long, hard look at the back six is a priority, but this season will have damaged the team's reputation and ability to draw in the kinds of names attracted in the past.  This may not be a bad thing, of course, and perhaps the club can develop a young core as initially expected this season. Who knows?  But we're really entering the realms of "beats me!" which in turn suggests that either the season was fatally poisoned by Magath (not impossible) or that the team/club is more broken than we realise, and that really we need to rip it up and start again again.


https://cravencottagenewsround.wordpress.com/2015/03/07/what-to-make-of-it-all-19-reasons-why-it-might-or-might-not-be-kit-symons-fault/?