weird night last night

[bahay18]

Last nights performance was very strange . It felt to me like the team had been told to win the game using the minimum amount of energy. There was an obvious gulf in class. Whenever we moved the ball quickly we opened them up . But there was so much tiptappy football , players standing still with their foot on the ball for no good reason . It seemed like we were desperate for the game to peter out but Luton ,to their credit wouldn't let that happen. Same defence short comings that surely a better side in this division would have taken advantage off . Do bobby reid, cav and knockhart all want to run in the same spaces ?Perhaps a case of less is more might be better and give Harrison Reed (who looks a real find and on any other night was runaway MOM) some help by bringing back Stefjo . Crowd seemed flat and a real sense of frustration amongst the crowd .

few extra thoughts -
-bobby is not a midfielder , looks good in the final third but not enough going the way other
-defence is an accident waiting to happen
-knockhart needs to chill out , looks so eager to impress that often beats himself .certainly can't fault his effort
-thank goodness for Mitro.

[filham]

Yes, a good summary of how I saw the game. Would just add that Reid is in need of a goal, he plays well but looks like Christmas will have passed by before he finds the net. We can't expect all of our goals to come from Mitro.

[Spirit of 2000]

Actually thought we committed more numbers forward into advanced positions than previously. Not so reliant on the sideways passing to open up a space for someone to try a 30 yarder (normally one of the wingers) - & as was testament from the goals we scored we got to the bi-line and looked to cut the ball back to players attacking the space in the area. This was as refreshing as the 2 rubbish goals we conceded were worrying.

[TrenteSept]

There was a sense of frustration in the crowd at seeing a clearly superior Fulham side not putting Luton to the sword.

We lose momentum by playing so cautiously and allow the oppo to defend in strength. If we up the intensity levels we usually get a result, but too often players put their foot on the ball and choose the sideways pass.

This team would tear the league apart if it were more aggressive going forward and allowed to take more chances. Having 65% possession and drawing (or losing) is pointless.

[abfg]

Not sure I entirely agree with the premise here.
Firstly for our team, Bobby Reid is the natural player to put in when StefJo is out. The reason is TC. When StefJo or Reid play, they move forward, often and early. This allows TC to sit a bit deeper, and do what he does best, pulling the strings from slightly deeper. It's part of the reason H Reed/Arter/TC doesn't work, much as I like Arter and H Reed had a very good game last night, playing them together forces TC too high up the pitch where he's not as effective.

As far as the tippy tappy goes, yes there are moments we cock it up (Ream last night a couple of times) but, especially in the first half, we made several good chances. Luton initially had 3 players high, the tippy tappy pulled those 3 out of position and allowed us to play either through the midfield or round using the full backs.....in the space vacated by their forwards who had been chasing the tippy tappy stuff. I hear the unrest when we slow it down sometimes and I groan inwardly, there's no need to rush when the space isn't there. Sometimes we do play safe in the final third, but that's a different issue.

To be honest I thought we were vastly better than Luton, and the only real disappointment from Wednesday was that we didn't finish our chances better.

[Sting of the North]

Not sure I entirely agree with the premise here.
Firstly for our team, Bobby Reid is the natural player to put in when StefJo is out. The reason is TC. When StefJo or Reid play, they move forward, often and early. This allows TC to sit a bit deeper, and do what he does best, pulling the strings from slightly deeper. It's part of the reason H Reed/Arter/TC doesn't work, much as I like Arter and H Reed had a very good game last night, playing them together forces TC too high up the pitch where he's not as effective.

As far as the tippy tappy goes, yes there are moments we cock it up (Ream last night a couple of times) but, especially in the first half, we made several good chances. Luton initially had 3 players high, the tippy tappy pulled those 3 out of position and allowed us to play either through the midfield or round using the full backs.....in the space vacated by their forwards who had been chasing the tippy tappy stuff. I hear the unrest when we slow it down sometimes and I groan inwardly, there's no need to rush when the space isn't there. Sometimes we do play safe in the final third, but that's a different issue.

To be honest I thought we were vastly better than Luton, and the only real disappointment from Wednesday was that we didn't finish our chances better.

This is one of the better assessments I've seen of the game. The only thing even remotely close was the scoreline. Admittedly important, but since we got 3 points and played a lot of really good football I enjoyed the game immensely.

[FFC1987]

I'm not sure if people will agree with this but I thought we looked quite good when we mixed it up at times and did get the ball to Mitro earlier with a slightly longer ball. That's not to say we should do it all the time, I I think we've not done it near as enough as we should in other games and allowed teams time to build banks, and stagnate us to playing quite a few backward and sideways passing and pressing us to our weaker backline ball players at times.

We do like to put pressure on ourselves at times.

[Spirit of 2000]

I'm not sure if people will agree with this but I thought we looked quite good when we mixed it up at times and did get the ball to Mitro earlier with a slightly longer ball. That's not to say we should do it all the time, I I think we've not done it near as enough as we should in other games and allowed teams time to build banks, and stagnate us to playing quite a few backward and sideways passing and pressing us to our weaker backline ball players at times.

We do like to put pressure on ourselves at times.

Agree to a great extent. As I've said elsewhere – the playing out from the back is fine at times, but with the high press used increasingly by opposition teams, a well aimed longer ball cuts out a big swathe of opposition players and Mitro is well capable of winning, chesting down, controlling, laying off with his back to goal. A variety of options should always be considered with the players needing to take ownership of decision making – but all this needs working on in training, when and how to play it out and pull the opposition around and when / how to beat the press.