Friday Fulham Stuff (10/04/15)...

[WhiteJC]

 
U18s Host Newcastle

Fulham Under-18s entertain Newcastle United at Motspur Park on Saturday (11am) in Group 3 of the Final Stage of the Barclays U18 Premier League.

It's been a mixed start to the Final Stage for the Whites, winning their opening game in convincing fashion against Southampton (3-0) before losing away at leaders Blackburn Rovers (2-0) and bouncing back with a draw away at Stoke City last time out (2-2).

The Whites were left frustrated that day as the Potters pegged them back after Luca De La Torre had twice given Fulham the lead. Our U18s are currently fourth in the table, locked on four points with three other sides, just a win off top spot.

Their visitors are one point behind in seventh, having won just once so far in the Final Stage. They started off well with a 3-1 victory at Liverpool but have followed that up with two successive defeats at Blackburn and last time out at Southampton.


http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2015/april/10/u18s-host-newcastle?

[WhiteJC]

 
Fulham boss insists he picks the side - not Curbishley

Symons adamant the buck stops with him

Fulham boss Kit Symons has blasted rumours that Alan Curbishley picks the side.

Fans gossip on social media claim the former Charlton boss has a major say in team selection since he rejoined as a coach last month.

Not so, counters the man in charge, although Curbs has been invaluable as a sounding board since his return to the club from which he was ousted first time in February 2014.

In fact, as the pair plot to lay to rest the spectre of relegation at home to Wigan tonight, Symons is keen to extend the temporary arrangement beyond the end of the season.

He said: "I'd definitely like him to stay. I didn't really know Curbs until he came in last time at the club, but I've been really, really impressed with him.

"His knowledge and his experience has been a breath of fresh air. I speak to all my staff about team selection. We sit down and look at all scenarios that might come up in games, and Curbs plays a part in that as the other boys do.

"I want people's opinions and for them to play devil's advocate, but when I've got all that, there's only one person who picks the team - and that's me.

"It's my head on the block and it's the only way it can work properly."


http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/fulham-boss-insists-picks-side-9014327?

[WhiteJC]

 
Next Up: Wigan Athletic

Fulham host Wigan Athletic on Friday evening at Craven Cottage as the visitors look to mount a great escape.


The opposition

Having relieved manager Malky Mackay of his duties after their 2-0 home defeat to Derby County on Monday, Wigan have now placed former player Gary Caldwell in charge, with Friday night being his first ever game as a manager.

The season started in reasonable fashion under former boss Uwe Rosler and following a 4-0 win over Birmingham City at the end of August they found themselves in mid-table and looking to push on into the Play-Off places. However, that win would turn out to be the last time they have taken three points at the DW stadium this season.

In September the rot started as they picked up just two points in five games and scored only twice, although October gave fans a little optimism as they remained unbeaten in four and recorded an impressive win at Derby County.

The following month they would go five without a win again, picking up just two draws including a 3-3 thriller at the DW against Fulham. Following the 3-1 defeat to Bolton Wanderers, Rosler was gone.

Former Cardiff boss Mackay took the reigns but could not turn the club's fortunes around.  December was a miserable month as they lost all but one of their games, and the poor form continued into the New Year, leaving them seven points from safety come the end of January.

Despite two wins in February against Reading and Blackpool they drifted further from safety, but March provided a little hope for the fans.  Two wins and a draw, including victory at Norwich, saw them cut the gap but back-to-back defeats to start this month leave them facing a tough task to avoid the drop.

The defeats were enough for the new chairman David Sharpe to replace Mackay with Caldwell in a final bid to remain in the second tier.

Team news

Don Cowie, Emyr Huws and Grant Holt remain long-term injuries but Caldwell has a fully fit squad otherwise, with Jermaine Pennant and Leon Clarke both back from injury.

Inside the camp

Gary Caldwell takes charge of his first game in football management on Friday and says his side will still take a positive approach to the final five games of the season.

Speaking to wiganlatics.co.uk, he said: "We are in a really tough place at the moment, but we will approach the next five games with only one thing in mind, to win. After that, we will assess where we are and move on."

"Having played here in the great survivals of the Premier League era I believe that nothing's impossible.

"There were times when we were down and out. I think of the run we went on when we beat Liverpool, Man United, Arsenal – they are things that at the time seemed like miracles.

"It can happen and we still believe it can."

Player to watch

James McClean: The Republic of Ireland international was born in Northern Ireland and started his footballing career in his homeland with Institute of the Irish Premier League. He made just one substitute appearance for them before having his contract mutually terminated so that he could join Derry City and it was there that he was spotted by Sunderland. The winger joined the Black Cats in the summer of 2011 for £350,000 and his performances in the Premier League that season were enough to earn him an international call-up in 2012. The 25-year-old was part of Ireland's European Championship squad that summer. McClean was a regular in the top flight the following season. The wideman made the step down to the Championship when Wigan completed a reported £2m move for him the following year, and he was a regular in the side that missed out in the Play-Offs last season under Rosler. The midfielder is Wigan's top scorer this term with six goals and provides pace down the flanks. McClean is known for his power and direct running and is not afraid to get stuck into a challenge.

Marathonbet match odds

Fulham: 33/25

Draw: 12/5

Wigan: 12/5


http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2015/april/10/next-up-wigan-athletic?

[WhiteJC]

 
Man On A Mission

Danny Guthrie is a man in a hurry. A hurry to show what he can do for Fulham in the remaining games this season. A free agent in the summer, he admits his loan move to Fulham is essentially something of a prolonged trial.

Should he impress, the Reading midfielder knows a permanent deal could be in the offing. If that doesn't materialise, then at least he's got the chance to put himself in the shop window during his stint in SW6.

"It's a good opportunity for me to play games and impress someone at Fulham or someone who's watching," he told the official matchday programme for the game against Wigan Athletic – our official charity match for Prostate Cancer UK. "But my main focus is to keep the Club safe; the quicker that happens, the better. That's the priority and after that we'll see what occurs.

"I'm enjoying it here, it's a really great Club with good facilities. I didn't know anyone beforehand but it's a good group of lads and I'd played against Fulham a few times in my career.

"At the start of the season, I thought Fulham would be one of the teams who'd have a push for promotion. But I know exactly what it's like - we had the same expectations at Reading where we should have been a lot further up the table.

"I understand how it happens and how quickly things can change. It doesn't make you a bad team or bad players, it just means something's not going right. That can be down to confidence a lot of the time. But coming here and seeing the standard of players, it's obvious the Club is going to push on."

Born in Shrewsbury, Guthrie grew up down the road in Telford. He spent time on the books of Manchester United as a youngster, before joining Liverpool's academy at the age of 15. Four years later he made his first-team debut for the Reds as a 62nd-minute substitute in a 4-3 League Cup win over Reading at Anfield in October of the 2006/07 season. His first start came in a UEFA Champions League tie away in Galatasaray.

Loan spells with Southampton and Bolton Wanderers followed, before a permanent switch to Kevin Keegan's Newcastle United for £2.5m in the summer of 2008. Four years later he joined Reading.

The Royals were relegated in Guthrie's first season in Berkshire. He then played 33 times in the Championship last term, scoring on four occasions, as they finished seventh and just missed out on the Play-Offs. But first-team chances would prove limited this term.

"Injuries played a massive part," he explained. "It's been really stop-start. Once I was able to get fit, the new manager [Steve Clarke] came in. I was out of contract this summer and wasn't going to sign a new deal so the manager wanted to look after the lads who were going to be there next season. I've got no problem with that; I understood the situation. I was going to move on in the summer and I'm just glad I could come here before the end of the season."

To read the full interview with Guthrie, get your hands on a copy of the matchday programme against Wigan on Friday.

Other exclusive highlights in the only matchday magazine that matters - which is also available to download digitally from 12pm on Friday - are:

Kit Symons pens his regular programme notes
Michael Turner tackles your questions via our social media channels
Former Fulham and Wigan man Michael Brown looks back on his time at both clubs
In our regular feature, key figures take a walk back down memory lane to the 1981/82 promotion-winning season
Academy starlet Mattias Kait is profiled in 'Through The Ranks'
And Les Strong bring fans his latest column

Priced £3.50, the 84-page publication is available from various sellers on Stevenage Road from two hours before kick-off. Or order it online from ProgrammeMaster.

For just £1.99, the programme is also available as a digital download with added video content from 12pm on Friday, so whether you're at home or away, you need never be without it on your iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, PC or Mac via Apple's Newsstand or Pocketmags.

http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2015/april/10/man-on-a-mission?

[WhiteJC]

 
Fulham A Preview

Another 'New Era' begins for Wigan Athletic tonight, as Gary Caldwell takes charge of his first game away at relegation rivals Fulham.

I have said numerous times in these previews and other articles, that if we beat the teams around us then we will have a chance of staying up.  Despite our current position, that is still very much the case with games against Fulham, Millwall and Brighton to come.  If we win those three in the next 8 days and results go right for us then we should be outside the bottom three with two games to go.  Obviously there are many 'ifs' and 'buts' in there and at this stage of the season you can never predict a result, but hopefully if we can get that 'New Manager Syndrome' that we didn't get from the appointment of Malky Mackay then we have a chance of picking up the points we need to survive.

There has been a lot said about the appointment of Gary Caldwell across Social Media and on our message boards, but for me the biggest aspect is the surprise of it all.  Firstly, why sack Malky Mackay NOW?  Why not sack him two or three weeks ago when our chances still didn't look good?  If we are appointing Gary Caldwell for the future no matter what, then what difference would those few games have made to him?  They could have made a big difference to the club though.  Doesn't seem to make too much sense to me, but most things never do.

Obviously the second piece of confusion in the appointment of Caldwell, is why him?  Yes he has been in charge of the Academy this season and has played at the highest level, but his management experience is this one season with the Academy and I would have thought that we would have wanted a more experienced head to take us forward and re-build the club.  He does have experience alongside him however in Graham Barrow and Eric Black I guess.

As a player, Gary played with his heart on his sleeve.  Sometimes that resulted in calamitous moments like own goals and sendings off, but other times it resulted in important goals and man-of-the-match displays.  He will certainly bring passion to the role and I doubt he will stand for anyone wearing the shirt that isn't giving their all.  We may go down in these next five games but we will do so with a fight under Caldwell that's for sure.

His first team selection will be interesting.  As a defender who played most of his football in the Scottish Premiership you wouldn't expect him to be a tactical genius, but he has stated in his interviews that he wants us to play football.  We did at times under Mackay look to be a 'hoof it long' side and that could explain his continued selection of the goalless Clarke and Fortune when we have other options sat on the bench.  Hopefully Caldwell will stick with mainly the same side but with the odd tweak.  I would replace Clarke with Waghorn and Boyce with Perch.  William Kvist would take Perch's role in the midfield.  That is our strongest side at the moment in my opinion and the one that should take to the field in the next five games. We have pretty much nothing to lose and everything to gain.

The players will have only had around two days on the training field with the new boss so I wouldn't expect major tactical changes, but hopefully a little more energy and the odd change in personnel will be enough to get the points tonight and keep the season going.  Three points tonight and a Middlesbrough win tomorrow will make for a good weekend.



Fulham - The Season so Far (Championship)

Played 41
Won 12
Drawn 8
Lost 21
Scored 52
Conceded 73
Points 44

Position 20th

Form DLWLD



Read more: http://www.cockneylatic.co.uk/news/2525-fulham-a-preview?#ixzz3Wuzg03NA

[WhiteJC]

 
Fulham v Latics - Big Game Preview
   
The appointment from within of Gary Caldwell has certainly produced a buzz around the Latics, most supporters appear to be very pleased with the appointment and I for one am delighted.

Without doubt it is a massive gamble, but then again so is giving the job to any candidate, regardless of their previous track record. This appointment though just feels right.

Without being disrespectful to Mackay he was never the right fit, too much baggage, plus his teams performances over the past five months have been shocking, to be eight points from safety at this stage of the season is a massive failing on his part.

Now we plan for the future, first up for Caldwell is a five game run that realistically is a step too far, but if he can get a win in his first game in charge at the Cottage then who knows what might happen. His first task though must be to put a smile back on the face of the fans and the club, if he can do that, despite the probable relegation, then he will be on to a winner.

A five game run, let's enjoy it and look to the future with some optimism.

What The Bosses Say:
Latics boss Gary Caldwell - 'I don't believe you need certain players for certain leagues, it is more about your players believing in the way you coach them

'Football is a game and it is about winning, I think we get a bit hung up about styles of play these days.

'My style is bound to be unique because I have to work out a way of playing with the players I've got. No one else has these particular players, my job is to find a way of playing that suits them.

'I might be young, but I'm not silly enough to think I will be judged on whether we play nice football. Managers are judged on results.'

Fulham boss Kit Symons - 'We approach the game in the same way as if Malky was in charge'

'We've done our homework on them as a team.

'Gary could come in and change things around dramatically, change the system, change the personnel, but we can only prepare and try and get as much information on the opposition as we can, which we've done, and prepare the players properly for that.

'He knows the club very well and they know they've got to hit the ground running from Gary's first game.'

'We're at home in front of the Craven Cottage faithful so it's down to us to take the game by the scruff of the neck and make sure we do the job.'

Fulham Team News:
Lasse Vigen Christensen and George Williams are both out, whilst Jack Grimmer, Jazz Richards and Nikolay Bodurov are doubts.

Shaun Hutchinson returns after a two-match ban and Moussa Dembele is available after recovering from injury.

Fulham possible - Bettinelli, Hoogland, Turner, Burn, Husband, Tunnicliffe, Guthrie, Parker, Kavanagh, Smith, McCormack

Player to watch: Ross McCormack
Starting to find his shooting boots, prolific on his day.

Wigan Athletic Team News:
Grant Holt, Emyr Huws and Don Cowie are out.

It will be very interesting to see Caldwell's first team selection though I don't feel there will be too many changes.

Latics possible - Al Habsi, Boyce, Maguire, Pearce, Perch, Bong, Kim, Kvist, McClean, Waghorn, Fortune

Player to watch: Kim Bo-kyung
Kim Bo could have more of a free role if Caldwell changes the system slightly and he could use his creative skills to exploit Fulham's defensive frailties.

More freedom for Kim Bo?


By permission of Bernard Platt/Wigan Athletic

Any Previous?
Latics and Fulham have met 43 times down the years.

Latics 10 wins, Fulham 18, draws 15.

We have only two wins at Craven Cottage, 1990 & 2006, we haven't beaten them home or away since that win in 2006 courtesy of a Henri Camara goal, time for a change.

The Last Six Meetings

01 Nov 2014 - Championship - Latics 3 Fulham 3
02 Jan 2013 - Premier League - Fulham 1 Latics 1
22 Sep 2012 - Premier League - Latics 1 Fulham 2
21 Apr 2012 - Premier League - Fulham 2 Latics 1
29 Oct 2011 - Premier League - Latics 0 Fulham 2
15 Jan 2011 - Premier League - Latics 1 Fulham 1

Ref Watch:
Mick Russell (Herts)

Why not take a look at our 'Meet The Ref' article.

Mick Russell Card Watch 2014/15

Games - 28, yellows - 71, reds - 4.

Match Prediction:
Head says 2-2 draw.

Heart says Latics to win and give the fans a little hope 1-3 away win.
Up Next:
Championship

Millwall v Latics
The New Den
Tuesday
14/04/15
7:45pm

Latics v Brighton
DW Stadium
Saturday
18/04/15
3pm

Latics v Wolves
DW Stadium
Saturday
25/04/15
3pm

Brentford v Latics
Griffin Park
Saturday
02/05/15
12:15pm

That's It!


Read more: http://www.wigan.vitalfootball.co.uk/matchprere.asp?a=395834#ixzz3Wv01WeDf

[WhiteJC]

 
Plumain Shortlisted

Fulham forward Ange-Freddy Plumain was nominated for March's Barclays U21 Premier League Player of the Month award, but unfortunately just lost out.

Plumain played only twice in March, but found the back of the net three times. First, he netted what turned out to be a consolation in a 3-1 loss at Manchester City, before hitting both goals in a 2-1 triumph over Norwich City at Craven Cottage a fortnight later.

Winner of the award Harrison Panayiotou of Leicester City had the same goals ratio in March as Plumain, and the other nominees were Liverpool's Sergi Canos – who faced the Whites on Tuesday – 16-year-old Rushian Hepburn-Murphy of Aston Villa, Jack McCourt of Leicester and Norwich's Remi Matthews.


http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2015/april/10/plumain-shortlisted?

[WhiteJC]

 
How important can a single player be?

One of the things I always wonder about in football is how important any given player really is. When you think about it, there are only so many points to go around.

First, a disclaimer: this is all theoretical. I know, I really do know, that football is a team game. That the interactions between players are complicated, that assigning individual value to a player transcends this kind of analysis. That managers sign players to fit into a role in a system, and that this system is often what makes a team win or lose. I get all that. This said, players must have some inherent value, right? Or why buy them? If you pay whatever million for Ross McCormack it's with an expectation that he will make the team better. My question, then, is how much difference can one player make?

For reasons we'll get to in a minute, take a look at the 1972-73 season. That year Liverpool won the league with what would have been an 85 point haul (2 pts for a win then). WBA were bottom with what would have been a 37 point haul. So over 42 games the best team in the league were just over a point a game better than the worst team. Put another way, Liverpool scored 34 more goals than WBA and allowed 20 less, so you've effectively got a 54 goal swing between the best team in the league and the worst.



So over 42 games the best 11 players in football are combining to be 54 goals better than the worst 11 players in football! If you want to divide this up and assume 11 players played all the time, we might assert that the very best players are worth 5 goals a season more than the very worst players!

Think about that for a moment.

In baseball they call "the worst players" replacement level. Simply put, it is assumed that most first division teams could field a team as good as the worst team in the division, so what you're looking at is a concept of value over a replacement player. Here we see that to be the best team in the league you need to find 55 net goals over an awful team. So, on average, your players need to be worth five goals a season above bad. That doesn't seem like much, but really, nothing else adds up. Sure, it may be that this 55 net goals breaks down as 15 goals above replacement for a superstar and everyone else four goals above replacement, but you get the general drift. The point is: there's only so much value to go around. Unless something very odd happens, most players can only ever have incremental value.

For reasons best known to me I dug deep into that 72-73 season, focusing on Leeds United. I looked at all the games, looked at how Leeds did, how good their opponents were, and which Leeds players were playing at the time.

What I did then was to assign credit for good performances and debit for bad ones. So against Liverpool that season, if Leeds held Liverpool to fewer goals than Liverpool usually scored they got defensive credit, if Leeds scored more than Liverpool would usually allow, Leeds got attacking credit.

Leeds also finished 50 goals above WBA, so let's divide up those 50 goals based on the digging I've hinted at above (I won't go into the details). We get this:



What? All it is really is apportioning the surplus points based on how the team did when each player was on the pitch. So here we have a number of players who were on the pitch when Leeds did well. John Giles by this method was the most important player per appearance, Leeds doing best of all when he played, but he only played 33 games. The numbers respectively are those 33 appearances, 27.7 means that when Giles played opponents were held 27.7 goals (for/against remember) below what they achieved in all other matches that season, and pro-rated is just fitting all of this into our 50 goal surplus (how much better Leeds were than the worst team in the league).  When Giles didn't play Leeds underperformed a bit, so players like Peter Lorimer, who played most games, don't get much more overall credit than Giles. If Giles had played 42 games he'd be the clear leader.

Anyway, by dividing things up we get a sense of who contributed what. True, we can't untangle exactly who did what, but we have some clues: when Roy Ellam played, Leeds struggled mightily. This wasn't likely all Roy's fault, but he played in what were otherwise full-strength teams. They lost 4-0 to Chelsea, 2-0 to Liverpool and 2-1 to Birmingham in those three games, as well as drawing 2-2 with Palace. Given that Leeds were arguably the division's best team that year, we can see that Roy's presence was not conducive to Championship form. It might have had nothing to do with Roy but I have no way to untangle that.

Otherwise most of Leeds regulars might be said to have contributed about 5 goals above that replacement level. I appreciate that this is fudged slightly because I set 50 as the total 'pie' to share out, but hopefully by working through a single team in detail we can see how – almost by definition – no single player can have *that* much impact on a season. There are only so many points to go around, even on great teams. If you think Allan Clarke's worth 20 points a season to the team, if you think Giles and Lorimer and other superstars are similarly gifted, then before long you realise that you've run out of points, and that the likes of Billy Bremner and Jack Charlton and Norman Hunter, well they're worth a piece of the pie, too, right? And so on and so on... So you come back to where you started, that even the best players in this team may only have contributed 5 net (attacking or defending) goals more than an average player might have done in their place. Nothing else adds up.

Right, if by some miracle you're still reading, you're wondering if this is the right way to look at things. It probably isn't. But again, when we buy a footballer we assign a value to him, an expectation. And I'm saying that these expectations almost have to be too high. There's only so much surplus value you can fit into a football team.

This affects the way all teams do business. If Fulham needed 50 net goals to be competitive this year (and actually the Championship still seems to broadly support this) then they had to understand a) what they had and b) what they needed. Ross McCormack brought all those goals with him, and we had a good wonder about what that might mean for Fulham, but in retrospect we needed more players of that quality, because a single star player on his own isn't going to cut it.


https://cravencottagenewsround.wordpress.com/2015/04/10/how-important-can-a-single-player-be/?

[WhiteJC]

 
Fulham v Latics Preview

So a new era dawns, one very few expected prior to the Derby defeat as former club captain Gary Caldwell takes over the Latics hotseat with five games to save a season with a renewed commitment to play an exciting brand of football sadly lacking in recent months.

Caldwell has virtually a full strength squad to choose from with the exceptions of long term injuries Holt and Huws along with a recent injury to utility man Don Cowie.

35 goals in 41 games is an embarrassing return for Wigan, the second worse in the league (behind already relegated Blackpool) and this is the area Caldwell needs to focus on urgently with Waghorn the top striker with three goals. Fortune and Clarke have been the striking partnership of choice in recent weeks but with a combined tally of just two league goals, one of them must surely be dropped in favour of Waghorn.

Billy McKay the hotshot striker signed from Inverness in January has  been confined to cameo appearances off the bench since arriving at the DW and in the last couple of games he has failed to even make the first eighteen. However the Northern Irish international has the knack of scoring goals and if Caldwell can find the right support for the diminutive striker then hopefully the goals will flow.

Elsewhere  the Wigan starting line up should show few changes with the possible exception of moving Perch into the back four with either the veteran Boyce or Bong the man to make way with McCann coming into midfield alongside Kvist.

Fulham have injury worries at the back with Grimmer, Richards and Bodurov all doubtful.Further upfield, Dembele and Ruiz are available the latter having come on as a sub in the one all draw at Charlton on Tuesday.

A win for Fulham would virtually secure that they will be in the Sky Bet Championship next season whilst anything less than a win for Wigan would leave them having to win at least three of their remaining four games to stay up, a tall ask with games against play off chasing Wolves and Brentford on the list.

Likely Line up  4-1- 3-2
Al Habsi
Perch (C), Maguire, Pearce, Bong
Kvist
Kim, McCann, McClean
Fortune, Waghorn
Subs
Carson, Barnett, Boyce, Pennant, Murphy, Clarke McKay,
Predicted result....both sides to cancel each other out, a one all draw


http://thisnorthernsoul.co.uk/2015/04/fulham-v-latics-preview/?