Jack and Loz at the Cottage - Blog 102

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Jack and Loz at the Cottage - Blog 102

Date: 30th March 2019

Opposition: Manchester City

Score: 0-2

Weather: pink and white blossom peppered the streets of SW6 and golden sunshine warmed the red bricks of our beautiful ground

Atmosphere: good in the circumstances

MOTM (football): we have been critical of Anguissa in the past when he looked, Frankly, like he wasn't ready for League 2 never mind the Premier League. In the last few games, however, he has been a different player and on Saturday he was the stand out performer - breaking up play, winning the ball, anticipating where on the pitch he would be needed, unafraid of the quality of the opposition. If he stays next season (and it's a big if) he could dominate the Championship

MOTM (non-football): many thanks to Andre Schurrle for stopping a Man City counter attack with his face

Mitromometer: glowering in the stands

Pub: the Blue Boat

For Fulham fans, a visit to the Cottage for a lunchtime kickoff on a sunny Saturday should be an occasion to savour. There should be drinking by the river, sunshine on our white shirts while the old ground basks in the heat. This season though it is becoming very hard to muster any enthusiasm for yet another match against yet another world class team with the only possible result yet another loss. Our main preoccupation on the way to the Cottage was whether Man City would score more goals that there have been Meaningful Votes recently and just how bad we were going to look in the eyes of the world.

Even the most ardent Fulham fan (and we consider ourselves quite high on that scale) would not have expected to limit the damage to only two goals or to hold the league leaders to stalemate for over 70 minutes. But this was an odd match. The weather made it feel like a pre season friendly and for Man City (who paid Fulham the compliment of playing a full strength side with a better bench than our starting line up) it must have felt a bit like a training session at times. But, two individual mistakes aside, we didn't make life easy for them, confidently defending the multitude of corners and reducing City to taking potshots from distance, one of which soared over the Putney End into Bishops Park.

As well as Frank, Christie had a good game, quashing the efforts of Raheem Sterling, while Ryan Sessengon, 18, showed a new physical strength to go with his old drive and passion. Ayite put in a good shift while MLM was composed and confident. Overall, the slightly odd formation (enforced at least in part by Mitro's injury) worked well despite the miscommunication between Bryan and Babel and TFM mistakenly thinking he was playing walking football for most of the first half. The subs made sense with Kebano almost making an impact and Schurrle being far more useful for the last 20 minutes than he used to be for the first 70. While it's always good to see KMac his introduction only illustrated our dearth of attackers.

The fact of the matter is we are now so used to losing that another loss makes very little impact. It's like having a filling at the dentist's: you know something bad is happening but your mouth is numb so you can't feel it and you just want it to be over quickly.

Random musings:-

- Man City were the cleanest top 6 side we've played this season and, unlike many "good" players, seem able to stay on their feet after a fair challenge

- the only exception to this was Sterling who as England fans we really want to like but who did himself no favours trying to claim a penalty and then lashing out at Ryan Babel

- Aguero (who is still a terrific player) has been at City for a long time. So long that he seems to be going grey....

- on the whole the ref did a reasonable job but, as expected, every marginal decision went City's way plus some not so marginal ones from the Riverside linesman who seemed to think "the whole of the ball over the whole of the line" meant the line marking the edge of the technical area

- on the subject of substitutes it was good to see Steven Sessegnon, 18, on the bench. We really want to see him on the pitch before the end of the season.

- public protests are a popular pastime in the UK at the moment and the Stop the Greed 55th minute of activism was well supported around the ground. We totally agree that long standing fans shouldn't be priced out of supporting the Club although a natural solution to the problem is (unfortunately) on the horizon....

- Man City's kit was awful, the socks being the only highlight(er)....

So we are one game nearer to the end of this shambles of a season and one step closer to the Championship. Huddersfield have now been relegated and going down with the Town feels like a companionable prospect. On a brighter note, the hardest games are now out of the way and easier encounters await. We do still have something to play for: Scott Parker needs to get some points out of this dejected, disjointed team of tepid talents to seal the deal for the manager's job. Let's go out with a bang rather than a very Fulhamish whimper.

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