Hey! We're here with another blog, and we're heading to the seaside to face top of the League Bournemouth. This is pretty much the hardest game we can have, and in the festive season where games come thick and fast its possibly the worst time for this game to come around as well. However, with absolutely no foundation for this claim- I think we have a shot of getting something from this game.
By all logic we're going to get destroyed on Boxing Day, despite our back to back Clean Sheets we still have the joint worst defence in the League (and thats only because Bournemouth put 6 past Blackpool at the Weekend), and we're facing off against the highest scoring team in the League by a clear margin. That combined with the fact we've only beaten two of the top twelves, and none of the top twelve away from home. We'll definitely struggle, as Russell Slade put it Bournemouth are the "yardstick" at the moment but on absolutely no logical basis I think we could get something from the game.
One player who'll have to be on top of his game is Bettinelli. We've seen he's very much capable of keeping us in a game with his performance against Brentford and he'll have to put in a similar performance against Bournemouth for us to have any chance. He looked quite iffy from crosses against Sheffield Wednesday, but apart from that there wasn't anything wrong with Bettinelli's performance- however Wednesday had a grand total of two shots on target so its hardly a good game to judge on considering Bournemouth clear 10 shots on target regularly.
The defence will be another area where we need to be at the top of our game in order for us to have any chance of getting something from the game, I used the phrase "If it isn't broken, don't fix it" in my Sheffield Wednesday preview- and there is no reason the same doesn't apply to our defence for this game as well, contrary to what some people believed Stafylidis isn't suspended for getting 5 Yellows as the cut off date was the end of November for that. Stafylidis will be going up against Matt Ritchie- someone who'll be a regular on this blog over the next few days (and hopefully months) this'll be his biggest test yet and I think the best way to deal with him is similar to what we did with Nathan Redmond and double up on him. Facing a combination of Callum Wilson and Kermorgant/Pitman will really challenge our defence and with the Pace of Wilson we definitely need to keep the combination of Hutchinson and Bodurov as we saw against Watford how Dan Burn copes with pace.
As I referred too earlier, we'll most likely have to double up on Matt Ritchie to sufficiently neutralise him- and even then we may not. In my opinion we need to revert to a traditional 4-4-2 to counter theirs and that'll entail changes to the lineup. This'll of course mean leaving out two of the central midfielders we regularly play, with two games in quick succession I'd rest Parker and Ruiz. Parker because he's just coming off the back of an illness and he's got some of the oldest legs on the team. I'd also rest Ruiz more because we saw against Brentford he simply doesn't fit the 4-4-2 system, and I'd rather we kept him fresh for what will most likely be his last game in a Fulham shirt against Brighton. With Fofana and Christensen playing centrally we of course need two wingers, and the obvious selections are George Williams and Pat Roberts both of whom played well with their sub appearances against Sheffield Wednesday and against the Full-Backs of Simon Francis and Charlie Daniels we need to use their pace advantage to try and get in behind their back line- similar to the way Liverpool did in the Carling Cup last week.
A 4-4-2 of course means two up-front and there is no reason to change a working formula, the McCormack and Rodallega partnership has been working wonders for us- so there is no real reason to change it. There is of course an argument for resting either/or because despite the Brighton news thats come out recently with regard to Hyypia the Brighton game is definitely more winnable than the Bournemouth game so perhaps we should be prioritising it. So that would mean bringing in Woodrow, most likely for Rodallega as McCormack is a player that can make us tick- combined with the fact that as I've said on numerous occasions Hugo isn't a Target Man, however if we are to get near the playoffs we need to start getting points off of the teams above us and the way to do that is to have our best attackers on the pitch as often as possible.
Team for Bournemouth:
Bettinelli
Grimmer, Hutchinson, Bodurov, Stafylidis
Roberts, Fofana, Christensen, G. Williams
Rodallega McCormack
As I've said throughout the blog, we will by all logic lose- call it Christmas cheer, blind optimism or being delusional but I honestly do think we can get something from the game and with our attacking threat, and combinations of McCormack and Hugo and Christensen and Hugo we will definitely pose an attacking threat, and if we can continue our defensive performances- not necessarily keeping a Clean Sheet but avoiding a Cricket Score we do have a fighting chance.
Thanks as always for reading, as you may have noticed this is up earlier than usual- but the last thing anyone wants to do on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day is read my ramblings about Fulham. As always any feedback is appreciated and lets try and stay positive- because you never know it could be a Christmas Miracle.
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