Schurrle wonder goal (memory lane)

[Nick Bateman]

[General]

He was so good. We were lucky to have him. Felt he got a hard time of it when with us. Had poor mental health, still scored some amazing goals but was playing in a horrendously poor team. If only he could've been part of our current set up. Think he still had all the talent when he played for us.

[RaySmith]

I was at that game at Burnley, and we really needed the points to stay up.

Great when Schurlle scored that worldy inside the first few minutes, but then we found it hard to cope with Burnley's arial bombardment,  and had a bit of  bad luck, and lost the game,  2 or 3- 1, I think.

Then saw us at West Ham, where a similar pattern, with some dodgy ref decisions, as we lost there too.

Preceding all this I think, I remember seeing a great performance v Brighton at the Cottage, where we came back to win  after  being  two down at half time, which had given us hope, but then we went to Palace and lost fairly abjectly.

Schurrle was much criticised as not pulling his weight, but never really managed to fit in to a team that was rarely the sum of its parts - but I don't think there was lack of effort from him, and he did score a couple of great goals.

[bencher]

He had a pretty strange career overall, very inconsistent, great highs (World Cup win etc), some lows, and then retired young.

[FFChris]

Was talking to a German friend when we signed him and he said 'will do something fantastic during each game but you won't mention his name for the other 89 minutes'.  I liked him but it did somewhat sum him up to me.

[bog]

I was at that game at Burnley, and we really needed the points to stay up.

Great when Schurlle scored that worldy inside the first few minutes, but then we found it hard to cope with Burnley's arial bombardment,  and had a bit of  bad luck, and lost the game,  2 or 3- 1, I think.

Then saw us at West Ham, where a similar pattern, with some dodgy ref decisions, as we lost there too.

Preceding all this I think, I remember seeing a great performance v Brighton at the Cottage, where we came back to win  after  being  two down at half time, which had given us hope, but then we went to Palace and lost fairly abjectly.

Schurrle was much criticised as not pulling his weight, but never really managed to fit in to a team that was rarely the sum of its parts - but I don't think there was lack of effort from him, and he did score a couple of great goals.

Did we not concede two own goals that day?

[bencher]

Was talking to a German friend when we signed him and he said 'will do something fantastic during each game but you won't mention his name for the other 89 minutes'.  I liked him but it did somewhat sum him up to me.

Well we've had plenty of players that you didn't notice for 90 minutes and didn't do anything fantastic at all.

If we could defend that season, we'd probably have had enough attacking quality to stay up. But we were always going 1-0 down.

[SerbianLad]

If we could defend that season, we'd probably have had enough attacking quality to stay up. But we were always going 1-0 down.

I always have the same opinion of that season too. Our defence was sh*t. Our goalkeepers (bar Rico, who I always thought would have been good with a decent defence in front of him) were poor too. McDonald got older and we probably needed a good defensive midfielder to replace him.

Everyone in front of them were more than good enough. Mitro, Sessegnon, Schurrle, Babel, Seri, Anguissa, even Vietto, etc.  were all good enough for us to not go down. Had we had better defenders we would have stayed up imo.

Off topic, but on a similar note, in the 2020/21 season, we had players that were good enough all over the pitch and it is a disgrace we went down that season.

[WindyCity]

Yeah, I remember that goal very well.  Terrific effort and skill, great goal.

That said, that was about all he really contributed to the FFC cause.  For the most part, a disappointment in a FFC shirt.  JMHO of course......

[bencher]

If we could defend that season, we'd probably have had enough attacking quality to stay up. But we were always going 1-0 down.

I always have the same opinion of that season too. Our defence was sh*t. Our goalkeepers (bar Rico, who I always thought would have been good with a decent defence in front of him) were poor too. McDonald got older and we probably needed a good defensive midfielder to replace him.

Everyone in front of them were more than good enough. Mitro, Sessegnon, Schurrle, Babel, Seri, Anguissa, even Vietto, etc.  were all good enough for us to not go down. Had we had better defenders we would have stayed up imo.

Off topic, but on a similar note, in the 2020/21 season, we had players that were good enough all over the pitch and it is a disgrace we went down that season.

Our defence was Championship level that year. Bryan, Mawson, Ream (before improving), Le Marchand, Christie, Odoi, Fosu-Mensah. With that said, with the right coaching, they may have been good enough. We just didn't have the right team structure to prevent teams scoring against us.

The 20-21 season we were quite good defensively but Parker didn't know how to coach us to attack properly. Plenty of ability there though - Anguissa, Lookman, Mitro, Cairney, Lemina, RLC etc

[SerbianLad]

If we could defend that season, we'd probably have had enough attacking quality to stay up. But we were always going 1-0 down.

I always have the same opinion of that season too. Our defence was sh*t. Our goalkeepers (bar Rico, who I always thought would have been good with a decent defence in front of him) were poor too. McDonald got older and we probably needed a good defensive midfielder to replace him.

Everyone in front of them were more than good enough. Mitro, Sessegnon, Schurrle, Babel, Seri, Anguissa, even Vietto, etc.  were all good enough for us to not go down. Had we had better defenders we would have stayed up imo.

Off topic, but on a similar note, in the 2020/21 season, we had players that were good enough all over the pitch and it is a disgrace we went down that season.

Our defence was Championship level that year. Bryan, Mawson, Ream (before improving), Le Marchand, Christie, Odoi, Fosu-Mensah. With that said, with the right coaching, they may have been good enough. We just didn't have the right team structure to prevent teams scoring against us.

The 20-21 season we were quite good defensively but Parker didn't know how to coach us to attack properly. Plenty of ability there though - Anguissa, Lookman, Mitro, Cairney, Lemina, RLC etc

Exactly, the coaching could have been better in the 18/19 season, but I think even with great coaching we would have either gone down or survived by the skin of our teeth. Defence was just not good enough for that level.

The less said about the 20/21 season the better. Nowhere near the worst 3 teams in any line on field, yet we were one of the worst teams I've seen in recent years.