Some thoughts from yesterday

[FulhamStu]

Houghton has put together a side that know how to defend.  The best teams are built from the back and he has done this very well.  We were better than them in general play but they defend better than we do.  They also have dangerous strikers whilst we rely on midfield and fullbacks who are not natural goal scorers.   We played some excellent stuff yesterday and are at times a joy to watch.  We are however a few players (as we all know) away from being promotion material.   We need to recruit very well to have any chance this season.  Next season however, if again we bring in the correct players, keep the coaching staff and key players in tack we could be fantastic.

[MJG]

What i came away with yesterday were a couple of things...well maybe three things.
1- I was proved right about Smith. Apart from a couple of headers in first 5 minutes he offers very little. hes a lump who yes kept the CBs busy but his fitness is woeful (and he trains every day) and had to come off as he was looking every inch the man running in quicksand. But he does not hold the ball up, first touch of a wall.
2 - Houghton is an excellent Championship manager. Was always my other choice after Symons when Mad Magath was sacked.But I remeber many saying hes no good in the PL. Well worry about that when there. He knew exactly what our main weakness is. And thats a long ball down the middle of our CB's ....and thats any combination of the four we have. Its been our problem all season.
3 - Game management. Houghton won that hands down. as soon as they were losing he threw caustion to the wind and that ten minute spell where they had 3 or 4 right up top on our defence was too much for our fragile minds. We just could not handle it. And then as soon as they are in the lead he changes it again. SJ needs to improve his reaction to whats going on in a game.

[Woolly Mammoth]

What i came away with yesterday were a couple of things...well maybe three things.
1- I was proved right about Smith. Apart from a couple of headers in first 5 minutes he offers very little. hes a lump who yes kept the CBs busy but his fitness is woeful (and he trains every day) and had to come off as he was looking every inch the man running in quicksand. But he does not hold the ball up, first touch of a wall.
2 - Houghton is an excellent Championship manager. Was always my other choice after Symons when Mad Magath was sacked.But I remeber many saying hes no good in the PL. Well worry about that when there. He knew exactly what our main weakness is. And thats a long ball down the middle of our CB's ....and thats any combination of the four we have. Its been our problem all season.
3 - Game management. Houghton won that hands down. as soon as they were losing he threw caustion to the wind and that ten minute spell where they had 3 or 4 right up top on our defence was too much for our fragile minds. We just could not handle it. And then as soon as they are in the lead he changes it again. SJ needs to improve his reaction to whats going on in a game.

[Woolly Mammoth]

Houghton has put together a side that know how to defend.  The best teams are built from the back and he has done this very well.  We were better than them in general play but they defend better than we do.  They also have dangerous strikers whilst we rely on midfield and fullbacks who are not natural goal scorers.   We played some excellent stuff yesterday and are at times a joy to watch.  We are however a few players (as we all know) away from being promotion material.   We need to recruit very well to have any chance this season.  Next season however, if again we bring in the correct players, keep the coaching staff and key players in tack we could be fantastic.

[Riversider]

What i came away with yesterday were a couple of things...well maybe three things.
1- I was proved right about Smith. Apart from a couple of headers in first 5 minutes he offers very little. hes a lump who yes kept the CBs busy but his fitness is woeful (and he trains every day) and had to come off as he was looking every inch the man running in quicksand. But he does not hold the ball up, first touch of a wall.
2 - Houghton is an excellent Championship manager. Was always my other choice after Symons when Mad Magath was sacked.But I remeber many saying hes no good in the PL. Well worry about that when there. He knew exactly what our main weakness is. And thats a long ball down the middle of our CB's ....and thats any combination of the four we have. Its been our problem all season.
3 - Game management. Houghton won that hands down. as soon as they were losing he threw caustion to the wind and that ten minute spell where they had 3 or 4 right up top on our defence was too much for our fragile minds. We just could not handle it. And then as soon as they are in the lead he changes it again. SJ needs to improve his reaction to whats going on in a game.

When you say in Point 1 that " I was proved right over Matt Smith" who were you proved right over ?
Slavisa Jokanovic ? 15,000 Fulham fans ? As far as I'm aware nobody has been praising Smith , Jokanovic turned to him yesterday because of our limited options,
It was a case of needs must yesterday and Smith stepped up to the best of his limited ability to help out the cause,
What is now imperative is that by the time the Barnsley game comes around Slavisa Jokanovic has more attacking options available to him, we have a lot of winnable games available this month so it's vital that we don't leave our transfer business until January 31st

[MJG]

What i came away with yesterday were a couple of things...well maybe three things.
1- I was proved right about Smith. Apart from a couple of headers in first 5 minutes he offers very little. hes a lump who yes kept the CBs busy but his fitness is woeful (and he trains every day) and had to come off as he was looking every inch the man running in quicksand. But he does not hold the ball up, first touch of a wall.
2 - Houghton is an excellent Championship manager. Was always my other choice after Symons when Mad Magath was sacked.But I remeber many saying hes no good in the PL. Well worry about that when there. He knew exactly what our main weakness is. And thats a long ball down the middle of our CB's ....and thats any combination of the four we have. Its been our problem all season.
3 - Game management. Houghton won that hands down. as soon as they were losing he threw caustion to the wind and that ten minute spell where they had 3 or 4 right up top on our defence was too much for our fragile minds. We just could not handle it. And then as soon as they are in the lead he changes it again. SJ needs to improve his reaction to whats going on in a game.

When you say in Point 1 that " I was proved right over Matt Smith" who were you proved right over ?
Slavisa Jokanovic ? 15,000 Fulham fans ? As far as I'm aware nobody has been praising Smith , Jokanovic turned to him yesterday because of our limited options,
It was a case of needs must yesterday and Smith stepped up to the best of his limited ability to help out the cause,
What is now imperative is that by the time the Barnsley game comes around Slavisa Jokanovic has more attacking options available to him, we have a lot of winnable games available this month so it's vital that we don't leave our transfer business until January 31st

while you are here are you going to respond to my reply to you on another thread?

And there are plenty who have wanted Smith to play btw.

[dhowells21]

3 - Game management. Houghton won that hands down. as soon as they were losing he threw caustion to the wind and that ten minute spell where they had 3 or 4 right up top on our defence was too much for our fragile minds. We just could not handle it. And then as soon as they are in the lead he changes it again. SJ needs to improve his reaction to whats going on in a game.

On the whole, I actually think SJs reaction time to what's just happened in a game is pretty good. But yeah, yesterday I expected Parker to come on the minute we had scored. Which definitely cost us yesterday.

Your other points I very much agree with.

[Mince n Tatties]

MJG,You say Smiths fitness is woeful and he trains everyday, there is a difference between training everyday and match fitness.
Match fitness through playing games makes you sharper more alert turning wise,jumping etc,when your a big bloke like Smith you need games for that fitness level,sitting on the bench now for weeks doesn't aid to that at all and you can train all day and night.
I hope for Matt's sake he gets a move in this window he deserves to be getting game time somewhere.

[toshes mate]

I don't agree with the comments here that simply focus on what we did badly considering how limited SJ's availability list for the game was.  As he said after the game the team performed close to the limits of its capability.  Fulham were punished for (a) not taking the chances that fell to us (especially the 'pen' and (b) sloppy defending in a two minute spell, a story of our season up until now.  Our mistakes were punished by a side who have been doing this kind of thing very efficiently for two seasons or more because they know how to grind results out of any kind of performance, good, bad or plain indifferent.   As Statto says Brighton are nothing special but that doesn't mean they won't go up.

I was genuinely disappointed when Brighton got their penalty simply because we need to be much more savvy in our own box knowing the dearth of decent referees in the game these days.   Brighton have the players or have been coached into how to take advantage of what goes on in games and it isn't particularly attractive but it is effective when it works out.   After that Brighton's second goal seemed inevitable because we are Fulham. 

I am not going to criticise individual players for doing their best even if that best doesn't give us a result.  They are in the side because that is what the Board has given SJ to play with when regulars are injured, ill, suspended or on strike.  We must sign a few decent players in the window and then take it from there.   We can still get something out of the season if the Board and Owner backs SJ and show their ambition to us supporters.   A defeat should be the incentive to do better next game.

[FulhamStu]

Matt Smith is a popular intelligent and decent guy from all accounts.  His style of play is in my humble opinion not suited to this league and completely unsuited to the fast one touch game Fulham play.  Likewise, Parker is not suited to this and when Jokanovic has bought him on recently to shore things up has made it worse not better.  What I think Houghton had yesterday as well as his ability as a coach were far better options on the bench.  Our bench yesterday shows that once a few key players are missing, we are thin on the ground.  Of course 2 first team central defenders out is tough but now Martin is unavailable, we have zero adequate strikers in the entire squad...this is crazy.

[FulhamStu]

I don't agree with the comments here that simply focus on what we did badly considering how limited SJ's availability list for the game was.  As he said after the game the team performed close to the limits of its capability.  Fulham were punished for (a) not taking the chances that fell to us (especially the 'pen' and (b) sloppy defending in a two minute spell, a story of our season up until now.  Our mistakes were punished by a side who have been doing this kind of thing very efficiently for two seasons or more because they know how to grind results out of any kind of performance, good, bad or plain indifferent.   As Statto says Brighton are nothing special but that doesn't mean they won't go up.

I was genuinely disappointed when Brighton got their penalty simply because we need to be much more savvy in our own box knowing the dearth of decent referees in the game these days.   Brighton have the players or have been coached into how to take advantage of what goes on in games and it isn't particularly attractive but it is effective when it works out.   After that Brighton's second goal seemed inevitable because we are Fulham. 

I am not going to criticise individual players for doing their best even if that best doesn't give us a result.  They are in the side because that is what the Board has given SJ to play with when regulars are injured, ill, suspended or on strike.  We must sign a few decent players in the window and then take it from there.   We can still get something out of the season if the Board and Owner backs SJ and show their ambition to us supporters.   A defeat should be the incentive to do better next game.

Just seen this after my last post and completely agree.

[Bill2]

i think some of the comments on Matt Smith are a bit harsh. He was not effective yesterday but what other options did we have, we were playing the in form team with a good defence so I am not sure what we hoped for. The crossing into the box while he was on the pitch was woeful with far too many being floated into the 6 yard box where Stockdale had an easy day collceting them.

Yet again we lost the game because we didn't take our chances plus another poor penalty. Why do players insist on putting it at the perfect height for the keeper, hit it firmer about 6 foot in the air, mind you I never took penalties.

[Dixie]

I still think we lost that game more than Brighton won it.

We should have been out of sight by the hour. Who misses 5 out of 6 penalties FFS.

Their goals were both just defensive lapses from us. The first a clumsy challenge and a little help from the ref. The second, well if a centre back scores from anything other than a set piece you know you've done something wrong.

Brighton were nothing special and didn't deserve a point, let alone a win

I don't fully agree with you Statto

Aside from the penalty, i can't think of a single other goalscoring opportunity that we had in the first half... whereas Brighton had at least 3, one of which they absolutely should have scored (when 3 on 1) we were lucky that the pass to the player arriving unmarked into the box was awful!

As has been commented above, Brighton defended superbly the whole game and from my point of view their second goal was simply about wanting it more.

Also mentioned above, our crossing was mostly awful too. So many times the ball was lofted up into the box, for which Stockdale must have been delighted, it was just catching practice for him!

Not mentioned is that we were pretty much a one man team in this game. Absolutely everything that Fulham did well was through Cairney. Brighton understood his threat and every time he got the ball anywhere near their box, they shut him down instantly - he did not have a single shooting opportunity for the whole match.

We looked better than them in open play and we didn't resort to the often pathetic levels of cheating that they did, but i think Brighton deserved to win the game based on goalscoring opportunities. Matt Smith was totally anonymous - i have been keen for him to get some game time as i thought he had something to offer, but i was wrong.

[copthornemike]

There was an interesting comment from Stockdale after the game in which he praised one of the Brighton back room team who from video analysis had correctly predicted that Johanssen would place a penalty to Stockdale's right - small things which can make the difference. In view of the number of points we have potentially lost this season from penalties conceded and gained I hope this is one lesson we have learnt.

Totally agree with the comments about Chris Hughton's game management - absolutely spot on.