Sunday Fulham Stuff 05.04.15

[Friendsoffulham]

Chris Coleman admits Wales' next game could be Kit Symons' last

CHRIS COLEMAN has revealed June's Euro 2016 qualifier against Belgium could be Kit Symons' last as Wales assistant manager.



Symons has worked alongside his former centre-half partner Coleman since the 44-year-old took charge of the Dragons in January 2012.

But with Symons having been handed the full-time managerial reins by former club Fulham, Coleman admits it will be difficult to combine his international responsibilities with the demands of his day job.

"Next season may be different for Kit," he said.

"He will have a pre-season to go through and all the planning for the new season, which is a big task.

"His job this year was to keep Fulham up, but his job next season will be to take them up so things may have to change.

"We have him for the Belgium game in the summer, hopefully we can keep him and Fulham have been very good with us, but things could change after that."

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/434710/Chris-Coleman-Wales-Kit-Symons

[Friendsoffulham]

Scouting for Fulham part 2

Okay. Well yesterday we used the power of high level analysis to try to find some players. I had to use some quite high level numbers because that's all I have, but the thinking felt sound: identify teams who do a certain thing extremely well then try to identify which player might be behind this. Did it work? Who knows, but I enjoyed the process, so I'm back again today with the Championship.

I use standard deviations, which is a statistical measure of dispersion: the further away from the average you get the more unusual the skill. Generally speaking, anything over 2 SDs is pretty amazing. So:



Bournemouth are two standard deviations above average in scoring, shooting and getting shots on target. It's clearly an attacking setup so hard to pull out individuals, but to be fair the defence is doing pretty well too. Looks like a fine all around team, well coached, and unmistakably for real. How do you pick a player or players blind like this? You can't.

Middlesbrough are two SDs above average in not conceding, and in not allowing shots on target. They are not quite so good in preventing shots overall (still very good) which suggests that teams rarely get a good sight of goal and that there are men behind the ball doing a very effective job. So, as yesterday, we'll look for players 27 or under who are in the right areas.

George Friend 27D, recently player of the year (12-13), signed from Doncaster (where he was supporters' player of the year) with Ipswich and Forest wanting him.
Adam Clayton 26M, Manchester City from age of 7, Leeds in the pedigree, England U20, signed from Huddersfield last year, where he had also been that club's player of the year

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SeNINkep0I
(someone found 12 minutes worth of highlights!)

Ben Gibson 22D North East Writers Player of the Year 2014, up through the ranks
Daniel Ayala 24D much touted as a youngster at Liverpool, now apparently playing extremely well for Boro

Norwich look awesome by these measures, good at scoring and shooting, and hardly allowing anyone to shoot against them (2.5 SD above average). The fact that they are shooting a good amount suggests a near absolute control of football matches.

Bradley Johnson 27DM
Nathan Redmond 21AM
Martin Olsson 26D/M
Jonny Howson 26MC

All of the above have been around the block a bit, playing at the top level and with some plaudits. Redmond well hyped, of course.

Watford don't shoot that often but do score often. Top finishing or expert chance creation? Either way, some top notch front play.

Troy Deeney 26F has scored at a goal every other game for three years.
Odion Ighalo 25F I'm in love with Ighalo. He looks like a faster Clint Dempsey, apparently capable of scoring any type of goal you might imagine. . From the Udinese talent pipeline.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE1-wsNwJ3I

Matej Vydra 22AM aslo via Udinese, Czech international, another lovely player.

And we can't do this without mentioning Fulham.  If we were scouting Fulham we'd note that the attacking element is passable but defensively less so, to the point where nobody at all in the division has allowed more shots on target.  That's terribly damning: not awful in preventing shots overall, but give away really good chances, suggesting attackers not being picked up or closed down.  There's nothing here that Fulham do well, so as an analyst, searching for hidden value (alright, hardly hidden), you'd take a quick look at those Fulham numbers and move onto the next team without dwelling for long.

https://cravencottagenewsround.wordpress.com/2015/04/04/scouting-for-fulham-part-2/

[Friendsoffulham]

Johnny's Story


In 1962, Fulham's most famous son penned his footballing story so far. It's All In The Game sees Johnny Haynes regale readers with tales from his career, told at the height of his fame as England captain, and each week on fulhamfc.com we'll be serialising his words. This is Johnny's Story.


Chapter Eight – Matches And Men (cont.)

The happy sequel was that before 100,000 fans in the huge national stadium in Bucharest, I played my very best match in any England shirt up to that time. I had one of these golden days which footballers encounter all too seldom when nothing could go wrong for me, and I crowned it all by taking a quick square pass from a free kick by Duncan Edwards, running on to the ball and smashing a beautiful shot all the way home, streaking into the net from all of thirty yards, two minutes from the end. This was a memory to treasure. The next match, against Czechoslovakia in Bratislava, was an equal triumph for Duncan Edwards. He shot two glorious goals in the 2-0 win, and again, England was hopelessly in this unique player's debt.



Quite earnestly, I would doubt if there has ever been a player quite like Duncan Edwards (pictured) in football. He had captained the England schoolboys' and youth teams, and played for his country in a senior International when he was eighteen. His future was unlimited just as his presence was immense. I am positive he would have gone on to surpass the achievements of Billy Wright as an international player. His greatest asset was his strength, not so much physical strength but a kind of dynamic strength which kept him endlessly on the move, covering, shadowing, backing up attacks, plunging through to finish off an attack with scoring shots, as he did so often for his country. His defensive play was quite outstanding, his heading superb. He had been such a huge boy that he was never really considered anything but a man, from the moment he first exploded on to the stage with Manchester United.
"I had one of these golden days which footballers encounter all too seldom when nothing could go wrong for me."



He played in various games for England at centre-half, left-half, centre-forward and inside-left, if only for part of the game, and each time he was a complete success. Increasingly with experience he had something to say about the game. Anyone who thought that Edwards played his game by instinct and instinct alone was sadly wrong. We built up an acute understanding of each other's play, and a joy it was to play with this man, the most indomitable player I have known.

Duncan also played beautifully with Roger Byrne (pictured), who, as captain of Manchester United, had more to say than most in England team talks. He and Billy Wright were the chief spokesmen for the other players. Some people have criticised Billy Wright for being too quiet and for never having much of an opinion about anything, but that is simply the way he is made. As a player, I can judge him only as a centre-half, since I never did see him play wing-half, but as a centre-half he was quite outstanding. Consistency was the keynote of his game, and I cannot recall any match of which you could say that Wright played badly. As captain, I imagine his one fault was that he never made changes. If he felt that things were not going well, he still would not switch positions. He may have felt that for a captain of England, this was perhaps unnecessary. Danny Blanchflower by contrast is almost always thinking of changes, but since he has only a few players to choose from, the shape of future Ireland teams would not be much affected by a Blanchflower switch that did not come off. If Wright switched England players around, it might influence their entire international careers. But this is a very minor point, and in general I have nothing but praise for Billy Wright.

http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2015/april/05/johnnys-story

[Friendsoffulham]

Fulham 1930s Retro Football Shirt:

This famous shirt was worn at the Cottage in a friendly in 1934 between Fulham and FC Austria. This classic shirt is long sleeved and made from drill cotton.



Click here to view @ Toffs >>

[Friendsoffulham]

Guthrie: More Care Needed

Danny Guthrie wants Fulham to become more clinical in front of goal so that their positive build-up play doesn't go unrewarded.

The Whites matched rivals Brentford for the majority of the Craven Cottage encounter on Friday, but it was the visitors who had their shooting boots on and left with a seemingly one-sided 4-1 victory.



"The scoreline doesn't look great but we felt at half-time that we were probably the better team," Guthrie told the official website. "We didn't take enough care with our chances and our play around the box.

"We felt that we could get back into the game but obviously they scored their second which made it a difficult period. We got ourselves back in it and looked like we were going to push to get an equaliser but the third goal has killed the game.

"We were the team in the ascendancy at 2-1 and I felt we were going to get an equaliser. It was a weird game and a difficult result to take."

It may not be a match that fans will look back on fondly, but our two debutants both put in a solid performance, with James Husband impressing at left-back and Guthrie pulling the strings in the middle of the park.



"It was an okay performance from me," the 27-year-old said when asked for some self-assessment. "It's been a while since I played 90 minutes and a run of games so hopefully I can only get better.

"But the most important thing is the result and we've come off the back of a 4-1 loss so there aren't many positives to take really.

"The Manager told me just to get on the ball as much as I can and give us a little bit of balance in midfield. I thought it worked well at times, we had really good periods of play but, like I said, we didn't take enough care around the box with our final pass, our final finish.

"It's something we need to improve on because we work really hard to get in good areas and if we don't make it count then we'll get punished."

Fulham will look to banish the memories of Good Friday as early as Tuesday when they make the short trip across South London to Charlton Athletic.

And Guthrie is pleased that his side have got an early opportunity to right the Brentford wrongs, stating: "That's the best thing about games coming up thick and fast, you always get a chance to put things right.

"We'll recover now and Tuesday will be a good test for us but one that we should look forward to."

http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2015/april/05/guthrie-more-care-needed

[Friendsoffulham]

Opta Evaluation


There may just be one statistic that matters at the end of the day, but the majority of the others were very even in Fulham's meeting with Brentford on Good Friday.

The sides had an identical number of attempts on goal (16), with the Bees managing to get one more on target than their hosts. However, Ryan Tunnicliffe also had a goal disallowed which is not reflected in the Opta statistics.

Mark Warburton has won praise at Griffin Park for the attractive passing football he's got his side playing, and they did see more of the ball on Friday with 53.2 per cent of possession and 64 more passes played than Fulham.

That said, the Whites delivered more key passes – 14 to their 12 – so it's fair to say there were enough goal scoring chances created to have scored more than just the one goal.



Defensively, the two teams mirrored each other once again as they both put in 16 tackles and both had a 94 per cent success rate. New boy James Husband led the way in that regard for Fulham, with five tackles made during the 90 minutes.

Our new loan left-back impressed on his first appearance for the Club, and offered plenty going forward in addition to fulfilling his defensive duties. He delivered five crosses, bettered only by Alexander Kačaniklić (six), played two key passes, made an interception and embarked on two successful dribbles, one of which won his side a penalty.

http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2015/april/05/opta-evaluation