Sunday Fulham Stuff (12.09.10)

[White Noise]

Fulham 2 Wolves 1: Zamora injury takes gloss off Dembele's dramatic winner

By Peter Higgs

Last updated at 11:10 PM on 11th September 2010

The never-say-die spirit Fulham acquired under Roy Hodgson lives on under new manager Mark Hughes.

What a stirring demonstration of how to overcome adversity the home side gave to secure their first victory of the Premier League season and remain unbeaten after four games. But they might have been forgiven for believing that the fates were against them.

The loss of in-form striker Bobby Zamora was a blow midway through the first half and robbed them of their main attacking threat. Faced with a Wolves side willing to go to desperate lengths to keep them out, they could have easily settled for feeling sorry for themselves.

But Hughes reorganised his forces and found a hero in Moussa Dembele, a £5million signing from Dutch club AZ Alkmaar, who scored an equaliser early in the second half and then grabbed the winner in stoppage-time.

Hughes said: 'Moussa was excellent and he's an exciting player. When he's in possession you expect something to happen and there are not many of his type in the Premier League.

'The longer he plays in this league the better he will get. When I had the opportunity to bring him over, I'm really pleased I was able to pull it off.'
Big blow: Fulham's Bobby Zamora is carried off injured

Dembele's rescue act was no more than Fulham deserved from a bruising encounter in which Wolves had seven players booked and Christophe Berra sent off for a second bookable offence, which led to the 25-yard free-kick that clinched the points.
But referee Phil Dowd did not endear himself to the home fans by turning down two penalty claims which, with the benefit of TV replay, looked justified.
Touchy: Rival managers Mark Hughes (left) and Mick McCarthy (right)
Berra, who had an eventful afternoon, appeared to trip Simon Davies in the penalty area in the seventh minute but was not penalised and, within three minutes, Wolves were ahead.

Kevin Doyle turned past Brede Hangeland and then delivered a cross to the far post which the unmarked Jelle Van Damme swept home.
When Zamora departed, the absence of a big target-man to battle against the no-nonsense centre backs of Wolverhampton appeared to be a serious handicap for the home side.
Strike one: Mousa Dembele scores Fulham's equaliser
But Dembele, who started on the left wing, switched to a central role and showed his versatile talent.
Four minutes into the second half, the new signing displayed deft control to bring down a centre before stabbing a 15-yard shot past Marcus Hahnemann.
At the death, Berra committed one foul too many and was shown the red card and, from the resulting kick, Dembele shot through a hole in the Wolves wall.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1311088/Fulham-2-Wolves-1-Zamora-injury-takes-gloss-Dembeles-dramatic-winner.html#ixzz0zIXLduop

[White Noise]

Hughes defends Wolves



Published 08:51 12/09/10


By Pa Sports

Fulham boss Mark Hughes denied Wolves were too physical despite seeing striker Bobby Zamora break his leg in a 2-1 win at Craven Cottage.

Zamora is set to be out for at least four months after suffering the damage to his right leg during a hard challenge from Wolves skipper Karl Henry. Wolves were shown six yellow cards and one red - Christophe Berra was sent off in injury time for a second bookable offence - but Hughes defended Mick McCarthy's side.

"Wolves were competitive as you'd expect. Mick McCarthy sets his teams up to compete for every ball," he said.

"The Premier League is competitive and I've had similar criticism in the past. Sometimes it's warranted and sometimes it isn't.


"Maybe some of the fouls were made to break up our momentum and maybe at times were a little bit cynical. That's why the crowd was getting frustrated.

"I'd never criticise any team for trying to be competitive against us - that's part and parcel of the Premier League.2

New signing Mousa Dembele hit both of Fulham's goals, the second coming from the injury-time free-kick won when Berra was sent off.

"Mousa was excellent again and is an exciting player. When he's in possession you expect something positive to happen," said Hughes

"There aren't that many players in the Premier League who have that ability. At times it felt like things were going against us - losing Bobby and we had two stonewall penalties turned down.

"When those things conspire against you, you believe that you won't get what you deserve but we were rewarded in the end."



Read more: http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Hughes-defends-Wolves-article577873.html#ixzz0zJOYnTNv

[White Noise]

MOTD Highlights -


http://www.101greatgoals.com/videodisplay/fulham-wolves-motd-6855349/

[White Noise]

http://cravencottagenewsround.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/murphys-law/

Murphy's law


Filed under: General — weltmeisterclaude @ 9:10 am



If we strip away the angst it's fairly clear that we dominated the match yesterday.  And we dominated the match because Danny Murphy was running the show.   He was too good for the Wolves midfield (who despite their aggressive tactics, couldn't get close to him), and managed to keep the Gera/Davies/Dembele whirlwind going for most of the second half.  Dickson was playing more like he did under Hodgson, but Murph was everywhere, demanding the ball and putting it to good use.

The interesting thing about Hughes' team seems to be a greater willingness to attack up the middle.  Under Roy you knew that within 3-4 passes the ball would be on the flank with a full-back.   Now this isn't necessarily so and as you can see above, a lot of Murphy's passes went into nice areas around the "D".

(As a side note, Stephen Kelly, just in front of us in the second half, was tireless in getting down the line.  His runs were excellent, and directly led to our equaliser.  But better yet, he was well-tracked by a Wolves midfielder, spreading out the defence and opening up space for others.   Kelly looked a bit frustrated that nobody was passing to him on all of his runs, but he did a valuable job for the team and can take credit for his overall performance.)

As Tony suggests in the comments below, Murphy's contribution to the team does, I'm sure, go beyond the obvious, and his leadership and presence are vital to the team's smooth running.    Yesterday he lost the ball in a couple of tricky areas which has led to a few "bad game" shrieks, but that is, I think, missing the rest of a very decent 90 minute effort.  As with Zamora, Murphy's not all that replaceable, and while he can keep putting in performances like yesterday we'll be okay.


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Comments (1)
1 Comment »

1.Hooray, the charts show that my neighbour (Tony G.) and I weren't imagining DM being back to form. In fact just about everything you say in this post was agreed between us during the match yesterday, with the caveat that in the first half it seemed that we were over-obsessed with going down the middle.

Clint is off-form, but put in a shift under difficult circumstances. Dembele has to be first pick, and really Gera would be best to team up with him, leaving Clint to fight it out for one of the two wide positions, and otherwise a useful sub. As EJ was again (V. Werder Bremen also) — you never know.

Comment by b+w geezer — September 12, 2010 @ 9:23 am | Reply