How are we handling the pressure?

[colinwhite]

Two seasons ago I was firmly of the opinion that our possession based play would benefit us positively if we made the step up to the Premier League . We dominated teams in that run in and I believed that  the more we had the ball the less likely premier league teams would be able to show their strengths against us.
That theory got blown out of the water in the Tottenham away game. It was a match which we dominated at 1-1 and were the better side for the first 20 minutes of the second half only to get blown away as Spurs waited for us to burn out and took their chances when they came. Many games followed a similar pattern. We got punished on the counter time and time again, against just about all the teams in the league. It was ruthless and our playing players soon stopped believing they could win. Ranieris attempts to make us more solid made things worse. Our mentality was weak and we couldnt hang on to a lead if our lives depended on it.

This season has been up and down,typified by saturdays match against Huddersfield . We looked like worldbeaters for the first half an hour only to gift the opposition 2 scrappy goals (showing our  achillies heel of full-backs unable to defend rearing its ugly head again ).

Our mentality seems to have undergone a certain change in recent games. Once habitually slow out of the blocks ,the whites have
now started games on the front foot managing to take the lead and then shown a new grittiness to hold on to it . Its not great for the nerves but has ground out the points .We havent dominated but we have won.
In an indirect way the recognition of the experienced players that its the points and not the domination that ultimately matters in games, has used our experiences gained in the premiership and will hopefully make us stronger if we can make our way back to the PL this season.
We have managed to master two different mind-sets . The offensive attacking play at 0-0 , and the art of grinding out a result when having the lead have helped us take 6 wins in the last nine ,with just one defeat during that run. Parker is a cautious coach,and the big question for me is going to be how the team handles the pressure when we go a goal behind in this crucial run of matches coming up.
On saturday Huddersfield could play without pressure once they scored their first goal. They threw everything at it. Had nothing to lose.
I hope that Parker is preparing the team for scenarios where we are losing. To throw caution to the wind and play with freedom ,in order to turn matches around. If we can do that then I believe we will take some stopping in the run in.
I also believe that if we do manage to gain promotion that in a strange way the difficulty that we have had in getting the points over the line in recent games will be to our advantage in the PL where doggedness,for clubs like us, is key to getting points.
The real test for Parker and his team will be if they have the mental toughness and awareness to carry on winning games when the pressure is firmly on.
There is no  point in playing in a style  today ,here and now ,that isnt going to work in the premiership. In some respects both Cardiff and ourselves found this out to our cost last time around. Their direct long ball game ,and our emphasis on domination just didnt work in that league. Cardiffs physicallity was no major weapon in the top flight and our quality was not good enough to dominate  against the greater  competetiveness of teams in that division. We arent there yet ,but if the team can continue to succeed and develop as we have seen in recent weeks its possible that the club may be laying foundations for a longer stay in the premiership than last time around.

[filham]

I don't know about the players but I am feeling the pressure of the last ten minutes of these odd goal victories.
3-0 up after half a hour last Saturday I thought we could enjoy an hour of free flowing football but there we were again biting our nails for the last ten minutes.

[Statto]

Not sure it will work in the PL if we're promoted but for the time being, one thing I will give Parker credit for is he seems to know how to see out a game with a 1 goal lead.

I posted about it a few months ago actually. At the time IIRC there had been about 8 games where we'd have to defend a 1 goal lead for the last 10 minutes or more, and most of the time (6 out of 8 times, I think) we'd gone on to win the game.

Some pointed out that we'd ridden our luck in those games and pointed to metrics like expected goals which suggested we didn't deserve to win them. I thought that was a reasonable counter-argument at the time, but since then we've gone on to do it again and again and you cannot just keep putting it down to luck. Successfully defending a 1 goal lead over Huddersfield for the best part of an hour is just another example.

I don't know whether it's our tactics or a "mindset" as you put it, maybe a bit of both, but one way or another we're turning into a team that's impossible to beat once we get ahead.

[ALG01]

Two seasons ago I had no doubt we would go up
I also felt if we spent enough money wisely we would match or better Wolves
Playing possesion football would be key to success

Unfortunately as we all know we wasted the best part of the £100M on players with no heart and not much ability that made the team so much worse because we have an amateur for a DoF that remains in situ although he was the single point failure of our single season in back in the prem

this season we have a better squad than two seasons ago but like then we have serious deficiencies and they have not really been addressed in the last transfer window. we also have a an inexperienced manager that repeatedly makes errors but is clearly very committed, clearly ahs a clear view of how we should play and clearly has the team playing for him.

but unlike two seasons ago, even though we are better placed, have a better squad and the opposisiton is less competent I do not have that same optimism as I did then. we are less good on the pitch, the tactics are too often too wrong. TC is wasted played way too far advanced and forced to be on the left, rather than deeper and more central, we have a single center forward with no understudy, we have very poor full backs that do not defend at all well, I doscount odoi because he plays a variety of roles. we have wasted far too many easy opportunities to do better and I come back to the same issue, the DoF is an amateur, he cannot see what needed to be done to gain promotion... if this season slips away it will be his fault. if we do go up it will only be itf we are first or second because in the end Parker's lack of expereince will do for us, not his long term ability just lack of experience will stop us winning the play offs again. That is my opinion... the chance for top two is clearly a genuine possibility but I am not sure we will do it but it will be excitiing.

and if we do go up the DoF remains in situ, will pa himself on the back and cointinue to shoot us in the foot, he is anamateur and the prem will eat him alive once more.

are we handling the pressure? I think so parker is very good in that respect, the team are playing for him, they are one of the hardest working bunches  have seen. I cannot fault it, there is no individual I am critical of for not giving there all, tha is wonderful and gets us over the libne often.. but we need to show more of our quality to properly put teams to the sword and Prker just has to drop TC deeper to make that so.

[Woolly Mammoth]

I am handling the pressure very very well, and I hope the manager and the players can do the same. I cannot include the snowflake generation who at the first sign of problems, they will turn on the manager, the players the mature sensible and experienced qualified over 60s, and then they will turn on themselves like cornered red ants.

[ALG01]

I am handling the pressure very very well, and I hope the manager and the players can do the same. I cannot include the snowflake generation who at the first sign of problems, they will turn on the manager, the players the mature sensible and experienced qualified over 60s, and then they will turn on themselves like cornered red ants.

I am pleased you are coping and think us older ones cope just as well
If we are in the mix with a handful of games to go I guarantee I will go into a unique meltdown of nervousness if our defence does not learn how to defend.

[The Rational Fan]

Not sure it will work in the PL if we're promoted but for the time being, one thing I will give Parker credit for is he seems to know how to see out a game with a 1 goal lead.

I posted about it a few months ago actually. At the time IIRC there had been about 8 games where we'd have to defend a 1 goal lead for the last 10 minutes or more, and most of the time (6 out of 8 times, I think) we'd gone on to win the game.

Some pointed out that we'd ridden our luck in those games and pointed to metrics like expected goals which suggested we didn't deserve to win them. I thought that was a reasonable counter-argument at the time, but since then we've gone on to do it again and again and you cannot just keep putting it down to luck. Successfully defending a 1 goal lead over Huddersfield for the best part of an hour is just another example.

I don't know whether it's our tactics or a "mindset" as you put it, maybe a bit of both, but one way or another we're turning into a team that's impossible to beat once we get ahead.

Statto, please don't stop saying "Parker Out" before this game, we have lost points in nearly every game that you haven't said Parker Out. And, the games you scream "Parker Out" the loudest such as before Blackburn, Wigan, Birmingham, Leeds and Aston Villa is when we get a winning streak going. Hopefully, the correlation continues and we get unbeaten til seasons end.

[The Rational Fan]

Unfortunately, as we all know we wasted the best part of the £100M on players with no heart and not much ability that made the team so much worse.

Well, we bought Mitro and other players with that £100m, but did we expect to buy a full squad or did we expect the team of 2017/18 to contribute. In truth, the story of 2018/19 for Fulham was the team that went up into the premier league was pretty bad with 7 goals and 8 assists; and the £100m only added 27 goals and 16 assists.

What contribution did players at the club in December 2017 make to the 18/19 team? Apart from Sessegnon and Kamara, the squad of December 2017 got 2 goals and 2 assists (Odoi, Ream, KMac, Stefjo, Cairney, Ayite  etc) , yet those players made a combined 150 appearances with enough minutes for 104 full games. Even Sessegnon and Kamara in 48 combined appearances only got 5 goals and 6 assists. I think it's easy to argue that the goalkeeping, defensive and midfield contribution was equally poor.

The idea that £100M made the team worse is delusional, it just didn't make the team that much better. What we bought with £100m was a bunch of yo-yo players (too good for other leagues not good enough for the league), unfortunately, the little talent those players had disappeared as soon as the blaming begin.

Fulham Fans needed to learn that a player on a five year contracts job is to deliver in three to four of the seasons throughout his contract (ie get us back up) and the idea that the players bought was the only problem is just silly.

[colinwhite]

The money spent may have been on paper at least better players,but it didnt improve the  team ,in fact it probably initially at least weakened it. Playing a new back five one or two games in made it very difficult ,if not impossible.

[MJG]

With all that taken into account, how happy would people be if we did not sign one new player in the suimmer if we go up?

[ALG01]

Unfortunately, as we all know we wasted the best part of the £100M on players with no heart and not much ability that made the team so much worse.

Well, we bought Mitro and other players with that £100m, but did we expect to buy a full squad or did we expect the team of 2017/18 to contribute. In truth, the story of 2018/19 for Fulham was the team that went up into the premier league was pretty bad with 7 goals and 8 assists; and the £100m only added 27 goals and 16 assists.

What contribution did players at the club in December 2017 make to the 18/19 team? Apart from Sessegnon and Kamara, the squad of December 2017 got 2 goals and 2 assists (Odoi, Ream, KMac, Stefjo, Cairney, Ayite  etc) , yet those players made a combined 150 appearances with enough minutes for 104 full games. Even Sessegnon and Kamara in 48 combined appearances only got 5 goals and 6 assists. I think it's easy to argue that the goalkeeping, defensive and midfield contribution was equally poor.

The idea that £100M made the team worse is delusional, it just didn't make the team that much better. What we bought with £100m was a bunch of yo-yo players (too good for other leagues not good enough for the league), unfortunately, the little talent those players had disappeared as soon as the blaming begin.

Fulham Fans needed to learn that a player on a five year contracts job is to deliver in three to four of the seasons throughout his contract (ie get us back up) and the idea that the players bought was the only problem is just silly.

The players we brought in made us worse and of course Mitro was an exception because he was already here, I thought within a broadbrush analysis that much was obvious.

The players we are talking about are the seri's, anguissa, MLM, etc they added nothing worth having and had no obvious interest. In comparison with the players we have now, including the summer signings, the ones we got at the start of the prem season, their work ethic was frankly pathetic and infected the whole team. The quality of the team never improved, the full backs we got were worse... previous fredricks and targett, in the prem christie/fossu and bryan/MLM, a big step backwards.
Our midfield, which was the lynch pin of the team was decimated by lazy players that  failed to adapt to british football or our system. You can quote any stats you want but make sure they are relevant, I tend to believe my eyes and frankly within two games it was obvious we were worse as a unit in the prem, that is not delusional it was obvious, we went way backwards! If we had just  kept the previous seasons squad we would have got more points and might hve scrapped home, the team we assembled was nailed on failure from the day one. And as far as the hopeless two keepers that arrived both dracula in the webster mold, afraid of crosses... we were way worse.

[SuffolkWhite]

Most of this squad should play if we go up and a team spirit can beat technique, Sheff U are doing ok. If you are to buy players in the summer then integrate slowly. Fighting spirit last season may well have kept us up but to have that you have to have a united team. The likes of Johansen can play in the PL especially if Norwood can!!

[colinwhite]

With all that taken into account, how happy would people be if we did not sign one new player in the suimmer if we go up?

if we go up we need to strengthen again. This time no luxury players for me. Not too many needed but CB CM and striker plus Rb and LB needed I would say.Thats not to say all the rest are up to the PL but continuity should be balanced against renewal more sensibly than last time.

[The Rational Fan]

The money spent may have been on paper at least better players,but it didnt improve the  team ,in fact it probably initially at least weakened it. Playing a new back five one or two games in made it very difficult ,if not impossible.

There is not much evidence that it made us worse, I would consider the below results an improvement.

• In 17/18, against the Top 6 Championship teams, we got 18 points in 10 games.
• In 18/19, against the Bottom 6 Premier League teams, we got 16 points in 10 games.

The 18/19 team failed against the top 14 teams in England, there is no evidence that the 17/18 would succeed against them either.

Tony Khan didn't weaken the squad by adding players, he strengthen it.
Playing a new back five may have weakened the team, but that was Slavisa's decision because he didn't believe the existing players were good enough.
If we lost the game because the new players weren't good enough, that Slavisa thought were better than the old players.

[The Rational Fan]

With all that taken into account, how happy would people be if we did not sign one new player in the suimmer if we go up?

if we go up we need to strengthen again. This time no luxury players for me. Not too many needed but CB CM and striker plus Rb and LB needed I would say.Thats not to say all the rest are up to the PL but continuity should be balanced against renewal more sensibly than last time.

The squad that went up contained Betts, Christie, Odoi, Ream, KMac, Stefjo, Cairney, Kamara, Mitrovic and R.Sessegnon, you are only missing Ryan Fredericks and Matt Taggett from the squad going up. Those two players are currently in teams fighting relegation, I think those teams are still better than Fulham ever without those players, so the Full Backs didn't account for the difference. Why cannot fans just admit that the "17/18 Fulham side" was very good against Championship teams but not very good against Premier League teams? It wasn't recruitment in the summer of 2018 that was the problem, its was the fact we had a team to get us up, but most of the players were the type to keep us up.

[colinwhite]

With all that taken into account, how happy would people be if we did not sign one new player in the suimmer if we go up?

if we go up we need to strengthen again. This time no luxury players for me. Not too many needed but CB CM and striker plus Rb and LB needed I would say.Thats not to say all the rest are up to the PL but continuity should be balanced against renewal more sensibly than last time.

The squad that went up contained Betts, Christie, Odoi, Ream, KMac, Stefjo, Cairney, Kamara, Mitrovic and R.Sessegnon, you are only missing Ryan Fredericks and Matt Taggett from the squad going up. Those two players are currently in teams fighting relegation, I think those teams are still better than Fulham ever without those players, so the Full Backs didn't account for the difference. Why cannot fans just admit that the "17/18 Fulham side" was very good against Championship teams but not very good against Premier League teams? It wasn't recruitment in the summer of 2018 that was the problem, its was the fact we had a team to get us up, but most of the players were the type to keep us up.

agree with most of what you are saying.  Mass recruitment causes other problems which we dont see. Group dynamics and al that. Plus we had a team in the play-offs . we didnt really have that by the time the PL season got going. However agree that we dont have that many players who are definite PL quality.

[colinwhite]

I wasnt criticising TK or Slavisa in the OP. ut it was nieve to think we could out-dominate most teams in the PL.and even if we did they tended to punish us on transition where we were weak.

[Riversider]

Whatever people feel about mass recruitment in the summer I'm sorry to says it's inevitable,  this squad is not good enough to even remotely compete in The Premier League,  though saying that no current club in this year's Championship has got a squad even remotely close to competing in The Premier League in just six months time,
Just to prove my point, let's fast forward six months, it's August 2020, and this Saturday we are due to play our first game of the season at home to Everton,
How many of our current squad (excluding loan signings) would you like to see in the starting eleven ?
Rodak, Hector, Bobby Reid, Mitrovic , that's about it as far as I'm concerned, the failure to once again bring in two decent full backs in The January transfer window is again going to cause us problems this summer, MacDonald,  Cairney and Johansen are not good enough to play in The Premier League,  though I could make a case for Johansen on the bench,
If the ambition is to stay up then another massive overhaul is required or if we accept our fate as a yo-yo club, in the same way that Norwich have done this summer , then maybe we only need 4 or 5 top quality additions,  accept our fate, come back down, get promoted again and add 4 or 5 more until eventually we can go up and survive,
But it's crazy to even suggest this current squad is good enough.

[Sting of the North]

Whatever people feel about mass recruitment in the summer I'm sorry to says it's inevitable,  this squad is not good enough to even remotely compete in The Premier League,  though saying that no current club in this year's Championship has got a squad even remotely close to competing in The Premier League in just six months time,
Just to prove my point, let's fast forward six months, it's August 2020, and this Saturday we are due to play our first game of the season at home to Everton,
How many of our current squad (excluding loan signings) would you like to see in the starting eleven ?
Rodak, Hector, Bobby Reid, Mitrovic , that's about it as far as I'm concerned, the failure to once again bring in two decent full backs in The January transfer window is again going to cause us problems this summer, MacDonald,  Cairney and Johansen are not good enough to play in The Premier League,  though I could make a case for Johansen on the bench,
If the ambition is to stay up then another massive overhaul is required or if we accept our fate as a yo-yo club, in the same way that Norwich have done this summer , then maybe we only need 4 or 5 top quality additions,  accept our fate, come back down, get promoted again and add 4 or 5 more until eventually we can go up and survive,
But it's crazy to even suggest this current squad is good enough.

I bet to differ on most points. To stay up you have to better three teams. Every club good enough to get promoted should have a fighting chance with only a few key additions if managed properly. Also, most players doing a good job at Championship level can do a decent job at PL level under the right circumstances. I believe the 'craziness' is to believe this not to be the case, especially as we see Sheffield United and Norwood this year.

Different opinions and all that.

[Riversider]

Whatever people feel about mass recruitment in the summer I'm sorry to says it's inevitable,  this squad is not good enough to even remotely compete in The Premier League,  though saying that no current club in this year's Championship has got a squad even remotely close to competing in The Premier League in just six months time,
Just to prove my point, let's fast forward six months, it's August 2020, and this Saturday we are due to play our first game of the season at home to Everton,
How many of our current squad (excluding loan signings) would you like to see in the starting eleven ?
Rodak, Hector, Bobby Reid, Mitrovic , that's about it as far as I'm concerned, the failure to once again bring in two decent full backs in The January transfer window is again going to cause us problems this summer, MacDonald,  Cairney and Johansen are not good enough to play in The Premier League,  though I could make a case for Johansen on the bench,
If the ambition is to stay up then another massive overhaul is required or if we accept our fate as a yo-yo club, in the same way that Norwich have done this summer , then maybe we only need 4 or 5 top quality additions,  accept our fate, come back down, get promoted again and add 4 or 5 more until eventually we can go up and survive,
But it's crazy to even suggest this current squad is good enough.

I bet to differ on most points. To stay up you have to better three teams. Every club good enough to get promoted should have a fighting chance with only a few key additions if managed properly. Also, most players doing a good job at Championship level can do a decent job at PL level under the right circumstances. I believe the 'craziness' is to believe this not to be the case, especially as we see Sheffield United and Norwood this year.

Different opinions and all that.

For an hour last Saturday our squad got played off the park by the team 19th in The Championship,  there's a long way to go between now and Premier League survival,
As I say , I have no problem whatsoever with becoming a yo-yo club , though the majority of our support would never be able to accept that concept.