Hey there! I've found there is generally more to talk about when we've played badly- so prepare to read a book. There are some games you simply wish you hadn't gone to, and this was one of them- there wasn't any tubes to Putney Bridge so that added about another 30 minutes onto the journey to the game, the weather was cold- although I didn't get cold for some weird reason. Then we get onto the performance, or rather lack of one.
The two goals pretty much summed up our overall performance. From where I sit I don't always have the greatest depth perception, but I don't think Stafylidis needed to dive in when he gave away the penalty and thats the second Penalty Stafylidis has given away (off the top of my head, it could be more). I'll admit I didn't really see the second goal, as far as I can work out it was a simple through ball to Solly March and he slotted it home- easy right?
In some games Bettinelli has conceded, but also been our best player by a mile because of the number of saves he's made. However, in this one- yes he made some saves but most of them were quite routine as such its hard to judge his performance because he was never really tested like he has been in previous games. Contrast this to Stockdale who must have thought his luck was in when it came to around the 65-70 Minute mark when he'd barely had to lift a finger, the only two times we tested Stockdale in the whole match were from Kavanagh's curler and then a shot on goal from someone I can't remember- but it also produced a good save.
I'm honestly not sure what to say with regard to our defensive performance today. Despite them scoring two goals Brighton were pretty toothless today, if we'd left them to their own devices (i.e. not giving them the penalty) we would have probably kept a Clean Sheet as the reason they got in behind our defence for the second goal was because we were chasing the game, similar to the Bournemouth game. Bodurov must have set some kind of record with regard to touches and/or passes in a single game tonight, the number of times we passed the ball backwards to Bodurov (and Hutchinson) was ridiculous. I thought Grimmer played pretty well today, he looked a lot more comfortable on the ball in comparison to some other matches and he got forward well- however both Grimmer and Stafylidis can't cross for anything, and that is one area where Amorebieta absolutely destroys Stafylidis with regard to aspects of their games. As I've already said, and at the risk of rambling- Despite conceding two goals the defence as a singular entity weren't inherently bad and there are definitely more pressing issues that have come out of tonights game.
The midfield was absolutely appalling tonight. firstly, I think this match proved- similar to the Blackpool game with regard to McCormack that we simply can't function without Lasse Vigen Christensen- and to a lesser extent Ruiz. The midfield tonight was completely devoid of- well pretty much everything. I'm not sure if I should include McCormack in this paragraph considering he was playing in the gap between the Midfield and the Defence for quite a lot of the game, but considering Hugo did nothing and I need material I won't. Firstly, Whoever thought Fofana was a Right-Mid was a good idea should be shot. Fofana is what I'd call a "powerful runner"- but in no way is he a winger, and we looked ridiculously lopsided as a result. Hyndman was pretty ineffective tonight, he just didn't look like doing much is pretty much the only thing you can say with regard to his performance today- and this is a similar story to Parkers performance; although he was marginally better, or at least in my opinion he was. George Williams frustrated me today, yes he can run- and occasionally beat players; but what else can he do? His defensive work is average at best, and in a game where we were lacking imagination he was figuratively (and most likely literally) frozen out of the game.
In my preview I said with regard to Hugo that strikers shouldn't always be judged on goals, well after this game you definitely can't judge McCormack as a striker full stop. There is a difference between "drifting" and being hopelessly out of position- and for the majority of the game today he was hopelessly out of position. The problem is, there is no way in hell McCormack would have played that role unless he was told to- I'm guessing he was told to do so to compensate for the lack of Christensen (and Ruiz) but that just led to two things, Hugo being stranded (again) and McCormack not being able to pose a proper attacking threat and have a sight at goal. As I've just said, Hugo was completely stranded again today. It must be beyond frustrating for Hugo to play in a team as he did tonight that are completely devoid of ideas and any form of creativity- and hopefully when we go back to the League in just under two weeks we'll have bucked up our ideas and have that "spark" that we had when Kit first took over.
Once again Kits subs weren't up to par; Yes we didn't have many options to choose from- which is ludicrous when you consider the size of our squad, but equally the subs Kit did make made little to impact on the game and once again he made them too late in my opinion. It seemed that it took conceding to make Kit do something, because we were poor long before the Penalty and we didn't make any changes- and that isn't the right way to think when you're struggling at home to a team who were (at the time) in the Relegation Zone. The Kavanagh sub was a strange one when it happened, but he did provide a better Left-Boot and at least looked mildly threatening coming in off the wing, and he probably had our best shot of the game- but he also came on presumably to take set pieces because McCormacks deadball delivery was awful tonight, another reason why Bryan is important (see our 2nd against Sheff. Wednesday) but his delivery was equally as poor and I think he only managed to clear the first man twice from Corners. Once again, we brought on Woodrow and Roberts too late to make a proper impact. I agree to an extent with regard to Roberts not necessarily deserving a spot in the team- but when the alternative is an exhausted Fofana on the Right its a No-Brainer surely, and I'm wondering if there is some clause in Fofanas Loan Deal where he has to play "X" Number of Minutes.
Overall this game was probably the worst way to end the year, which has been a trying one at that- and one that'll be summed up in my "Look back at 2014" Blog that'll be up soon. However there are some positives to take in my opinion; as I said in my Bournemouth review I'm never happy to lose, but these last two games has almost ensured that Khan will spend in January- where he may have thought we could have held over until the summer had we been playing well and winning games consistently, because despite our squad size it simply isn't good enough to be proper Playoff Contenders.
Thanks as always for reading, I'm pretty much going to have a Fulham blog everyday until after the Wolves game so check in regularly if you want to keep up to date- and lets not let this performance wreck our New Year Celebrations.
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