FoF MOTM Fulham 0 v 0 Forest and post match thread

[bobbo]

We for sure looked better when lukic and the other two came on . But as has been said Kenny T
Was our best player despite one or two heavy challenges that he got away with .

[WolverineFFC]

3rd game in a row I've had trouble finding anyone who played well enough to give the "honor" to. Ended up picking JA because there was a clean sheet and like another posted noted, he did a lot of clean up work for the other members of the back line.

Such a boring and uninspired performance... again.

[bobbo]

Tete.  BBC's viewer ratings for players who started are of some interest as they will include many non-Fulham fans. Berge deservedly rock bottom. He's usually in the bottom 2 or 3 on the BBC viewers' ratings.

love him as much as I do along with most of us I thought harry was well below his best today .

[Bobsffc]

Tete, clearly, but a shout out for the subs who I think changed the game in our favour. Thought Muniz looked very sharp.

[WindyCity]

I'll happily take the away point.  Not because I think it was such a great result, but because FFC hasn't been playing well in recent games, looking very disjointed.  Some thoughts:

MOTM = VAR
Muniz - Nice first touch and shot taken upon his entry.  Great shot appeared to be goalward bound if not for the head of Aina.
Bobb and King - Both showed a few spots of liveliness, but no end product.
Back Four - Appear to be easily beaten with runs behind them.  Andersen had to take a card to help himself out.
Leno - Really dodgy with his passes out to center of pitch with FFC players closely marked.
Chukwueze - Still one of my favorite players of the young flyweights, but sadly, disappointed in his outing, this is a couple games in a row now where he hasn't shown what I thought he would be capable of of.
Iwobi - Very dodgy, inconsistent.
Jimenez - Kudos for back checking (ice hockey term), coming all the way back deep into defensive third to help out, several times.
FFC fans and Leno very happy VAR part of the game.  Preserved what would be a one point gain, and preserved Leno's first clean sheet in last 12 games, and first of 2026.

[Ludlow Richard]

I'll happily take the away point.  Not because I think it was such a great result, but because FFC hasn't been playing well in recent games, looking very disjointed.  Some thoughts:

MOTM = VAR
Muniz - Nice first touch and shot taken upon his entry.  Great shot appeared to be goalward bound if not for the head of Aina.
Bobb and King - Both showed a few spots of liveliness, but no end product.
Back Four - Appear to be easily beaten with runs behind them.  Andersen had to take a card to help himself out.
Leno - Really dodgy with his passes out to center of pitch with FFC players closely marked.
Chukwueze - Still one of my favorite players of the young flyweights, but sadly, disappointed in his outing, this is a couple games in a row now where he hasn't shown what I thought he would be capable of of.
Iwobi - Very dodgy, inconsistent.
Jimenez - Kudos for back checking (ice hockey term), coming all the way back deep into defensive third to help out, several times.
FFC fans and Leno very happy VAR part of the game.  Preserved what would be a one point gain, and preserved Leno's first clean sheet in last 12 games, and first of 2026.

We are missing Kevin.

[LittleErn]

VAR for me - our best defender by a mile.

[General]

Have to question kings effectiveness ad an attacking midfielder. Good player yes, but he's started a few games and been more involved recently and we've gone backwards up front. He needs to add more to his game to merit starting, especially in the attacking areas where so much relies on his position. He seems to have blockers there for some reason, and needs to break those before playing all the time in the PL. We always seem a lot more flat up front when he plays, which it pains me to see

[Jonny4]

3rd game in a row I've had trouble finding anyone who played well enough to give the "honor" to. Ended up picking JA because there was a clean sheet and like another posted noted, he did a lot of clean up work for the other members of the back line.

Such a boring and uninspired performance... again.

Can't really understand the praise for Andersen. Did his usual performance of looking relatively solid for 90% of the game & then gets caught out when it matters.

Three times Forest sunk in behind him in the 2nd half. Bailed out by Kenny on one, took a yellow on another & saved by a terrible miss on the third.

He's a liability & Diop should be fuming he's been dropped.

Otherwise a really insipid display. Only real positives were Muniz decent cameo & clean sheet (somehow). Burnley next week a bit all or nothing for the season now.

[Fulham Tup North]

  Tete....
Full of fight, last ditch tackles, took no crap...
Solid performance and looked well up for it...
COYW

[twang]

Honestly, no one deserves it but at least Muniz impressed when he came on.

[hovewhite]

Only one man stood out above the rest - king Kenny by a country mile

yes there was no one else.

[jayffc]

Tete for me

Muniz looked good when he came in which is encouraging
Bassey did pretty well

Otherwise it was pretty meh

[KentFulham]

Tete, clearly, but a shout out for the subs who I think changed the game in our favour. Thought Muniz looked very sharp.

Looked sharp? Couldn't hit a barn door

[Deadcowboys]

Tete, clearly, but a shout out for the subs who I think changed the game in our favour. Thought Muniz looked very sharp.

Looked sharp? Couldn't hit a barn door

Just as well then that most teams don't have a barn door for a goal.

[KentFulham]

Tete, clearly, but a shout out for the subs who I think changed the game in our favour. Thought Muniz looked very sharp.

Looked sharp? Couldn't hit a barn door

Just as well then that most teams don't have a barn door for a goal.

Explain where he looked sharp, i was behind the goal today

[SerbianLad]

Tete, clearly, but a shout out for the subs who I think changed the game in our favour. Thought Muniz looked very sharp.

Looked sharp? Couldn't hit a barn door

He had a shot that looked like it was going in but Aina blocked it last moment.

[Matt10]

Andersen for me. Had a lot to deal with trying to make up for both Bassey and Robinson's over aggression and clumsy play multiple times. Won a lot of headers, variety in his passing, I can only remember one underhit diagonal into the wind.

This was a frustrating match overall though. Constant overplaying, trying to walk it in. That's been the theme for a while now. The left side has zero threat and goes to show why Silva has always opted for inverted wingers. It's just too easy to defend with two left footed players (LW and LWB). Pair that up with Robinson's very basic decision making, other than crossing early (except once) and no ESR to link any play - it just became so easy for the midfielders to tuck inside and prevent any movement into the half-space. King managed to receive on the half-turn in the first half, but nothing came of it because we've got Iwobi too deep or absent and Robinson never choosing to just blast the ball into the penalty area.

I think the Iwobi at the 8 experiment is over. He's getting lost and doesn't collect the ball in 50/50's enough. There were times in the match where he was reluctant to even put a foot in. I'm glad Lukic is back, and now it's time for the Berge-Lukic midfield to get back on track, while we bring Iwobi over to that left hand side like he did before Lukic's injury. That will bring more dimensions to our attack that doesn't rely on the most obvious left winger/wingback movements.

I agree with pretty much all of this, bar Andersen. I don't think he was our worst player, far from it, but he got exposed for his lack of pace two times in the second half. He did have a lot to do though, because, as you say, Bassey and Robinson weren't at their best.

Iwobi in the 8 worked well in one full game (Sunderland at home), somewhat well against Sunderland away and against Spurs at home. It also worked really well in the first half against Spurs away, but it looked terrible in the second half that day. It looked poor in every other match imo. To me it suggests it's more opponent related than anything else, as all 4 games in which there were significant periods of good play with him there were against the same two opponents. Berge-Lukic may lack a bit of creativity, but they dominate every midfield in the league pretty much every time. There were maybe 2-3 matches in total in which they dominated by opponents. I still think our best overall performance this season was against Brentford, and I don't think any other match was particularly close either, and we started Berge-Lukic pivot that day. Absolutely get another midfielder in the summer, but at the moment, for all their shortcomings, Berge-Lukic remains the best midfield pivot we have.

I can agree with that, and good point about the Berge-Lukic combo. I think we also need to consider how last season they were in the same position. I think a lot of people forget how consistent the Berge-Lukic pivot was last season.

For Andersen, look, the way I see it - he's not going to all of a sudden develop pace. Is that his fault relative to his performance? Not really. I could say the same about Tete who made fouls unnecessarily, got beat by Williams several times including the Dominguez chance in the first half, or opted for some questionable passes or choose not to cross when he's supposed to - it doesn't mean he is not deserving of MOTM. He positioned himself physically, and came through with the crucial block at the end.

Andersen won his battles versus Jesus, then had to fight versus Awoniyi. Andersen won all his headers, including a crucial one where it was he and Bassey vs Awoniyi on a difficult bouncing ball - just enough to steer the momentum away from their attack. Nobody says anything about Andersen's reading of the game though, where the outside of foot through ball by Gibbs-White to Jesus was well covered by him to clear. He made the right choice in bringing down Hutchinson, as did Berge dropping back behind so we didn't get a red instead of a yellow.

In the end, Tete vs Andersen is not a bad shout for MOTM as looking on whoscored they are both 7.0 and 7.2 respectively.

[SerbianLad]

I can agree with that, and good point about the Berge-Lukic combo. I think we also need to consider how last season they were in the same position. I think a lot of people forget how consistent the Berge-Lukic pivot was last season.

For Andersen, look, the way I see it - he's not going to all of a sudden develop pace. Is that his fault relative to his performance? Not really. I could say the same about Tete who made fouls unnecessarily, got beat by Williams several times including the Dominguez chance in the first half, or opted for some questionable passes or choose not to cross when he's supposed to - it doesn't mean he is not deserving of MOTM. He positioned himself physically, and came through with the crucial block at the end.

Andersen won his battles versus Jesus, then had to fight versus Awoniyi. Andersen won all his headers, including a crucial one where it was he and Bassey vs Awoniyi on a difficult bouncing ball - just enough to steer the momentum away from their attack. Nobody says anything about Andersen's reading of the game though, where the outside of foot through ball by Gibbs-White to Jesus was well covered by him to clear. He made the right choice in bringing down Hutchinson, as did Berge dropping back behind so we didn't get a red instead of a yellow.

In the end, Tete vs Andersen is not a bad shout for MOTM as looking on whoscored they are both 7.0 and 7.2 respectively.

I agree Andersen was decent all things considered. Bassey and Robinson were far bigger problems today if we're looking at defenders, but from what I've seen online, Andersen is the scapegoat.

I agree that he should have brought down Hutchinson. However, I can't help but wonder if against a team like Forest Diop would have been the better choice. Forest has a lot of pace in their attack, and that is Andersen's achilles heel, while Diop has very respectable recovery pace. Especially as his passing wasn't that effective today either (easy to say in hindsight).

As for Berge-Lukic combo, I'd add another thing. They were the starters in most of our games last season where we broke our record points tally. We had a slower start result wise, and a lot of fans blamed them for that, when in reality it was a combination of a lot of things, including terrible refereeing decisions.

[iansthailand]

Positives for me:

Muniz had his best game since coming back from injury. Looked like himself from before the injury, and Lukic coming back, who had a good performance, especially relative to how our midfield starters played. I'd start both in the next match.

Decent cameos from TC, Chukwueze and Sess too.

Tete was solid. Leno much more composed than in the previous match.

Pretty much spot on as usual SL. Agree wholeheartedly with view on Rodrigo, unlucky with the shot. What has happened to Chuk since Afcon/Death of his mother? Lost the ability and desire to take a man on, strange. Lukic certainly added a lot of drive to the midfield, Berge and Iwobi were woeful yesterday. Terrible match, worse than my wife berating me for not watering her plants!