Hey! We've got another blog, I've gotten into the habit of these being weekly as of late; but as the title suggest we're coming into the festive period and the blogs'll be coming thick and fast. As well as the three games we have before January, there'll also be a January Transfer Window Preview blog and (maybe) a 2014 Year in Review blog. So as you can tell I'm going to be quite busy. Now onto what we all came for!
Before I get into my usual team selection stuff there was a few things from Kits Press Conference I picked up on and would like to talk about. Firstly, I'm not sure where the McCormack rumours came from- I think from the Daily Mail; and that in itself means the rumour should be taken with a cubic metre of salt. I simply don't see a scenario where we sell McCormack until at least this summer- and that'll only be the case if we get a healthy profit on him. The biggest story when it comes to Fulham this week has probably been the recalling of Kacaniklic. I was very much in favour of us recalling him when we could, in fact if you look far back enough in my blog archive you'll see in August I was arguing for him to start- as I'm sure many others were. Assuming we sell Bryan in January, Kaca could be the player we need to implement a classic 4-4-2 successfully and provide our full-backs with more cover while in turn giving us more width. However, the first game Kaca is available for (as per Kit) is Cardiff on the 10th so its no use talking about how he'll be suited to the team until then.
We're coming up against a team with the least number of away losses in the League (1), and in terms of points won away from home Wednesday are only out done by Bournemouth and Middlesborough. With our very schizophrenic form as of late (Since Nov. 5th; WLWLW) its very hard to say how this game will go, but if we can perform like we know we can- and contrary to the Watford game actually show up we should have a good chance of picking up all three points.
As I'll be talking about when it comes to our defence, a Clean Sheet last week was huge for us- and we shouldn't be changing stuff on a whim; especially considering our defensive record. However, there is no reason Bettinelli should be kept out of the team for an indefinite period of time because of one bad mistake. Although Kiraly did have a pretty good game last week, I still don't really have faith in him as a Starting Goalkeeper for us- and with the form Bettinelli has been in he deserves to walk straight back into the team.
The defence is an interesting debate to be had for this game. You can look at it from a number of different ways- which'll I try and talk about as succinctly as possible. One argument you could use is "if it isn't broken don't fix it", that'll mean lining up with the same back four as Leeds with Hutchinson and Bodurov with Grimmer and Stafylidis as the Full-Backs. While the Full-Back places are pretty much locked until Hoogland and/or Amorebieta are back (as per Kit they're still out) the Centre-Back places are still very much a debate to be had- especially for this game. Although I'm not ridiculously clued up on Sheff. Wednesday, it doesn't take a genius to work out Nuhiu is 6'5 and will pose an aerial threat. As such you have to consider Dan Burn returning to the Starting Eleven as a viable option. However, as I said "if it isn't broken don't fix it" and I have enough faith in Bodurov and Hutchinson to deal adequately enough with the aerial threat of Nuhiu- as well as being better suited than Burn to cope with the Pace of the likes of Stevie May, and this'll especially be the case if Wednesday opt to go for Stevie May as the one up front with Drenthe, McGugan and Maguire in behind him.
With Kacaniklic coming back, presumably to start the competition for Midfield places will have gotten even hotter. As such whoever we play between now and Cardiff in the Midfield will have to stake their claim even more than they may (or may not) have already done. Lasse Vigen Christensen is fast becoming our first name on the team sheet, at this stage there is no argument to be had- he's our player of the year and with the form he's currently on anyone who would even consider dropping him needs to have a psychiatric examination. I'm guessing that Parker is back for this game, as illness generally lasts a week at the most which means its a fight between Hyndman, Fofana and (to an extent) George Williams for that third midfield place. On balance I'd go for Fofana, especially after his standout performance against Leeds I think with the Midfield three of Christensen, Parker and Fofana we might finally have found the right balance for our Narrow Diamond formation. As I seem to be saying every blog (apologies for sounding like a broken record) we need to keep Ruiz in the team for as long as we possibly can, yes he is frustrating at times- but he also has undoubted quality and (with respect) against a Midfield like Sheffield Wednesdays he could flourish and run the show like he did against Bolton.
Our striking options are as straight-forward as ever. The McCormack-Hugo partnership up front has been great thus far, and perhaps most encouragingly we're getting goals from sources other than this partnership now- and if we can tie all of it together we'll start looking like real contenders for the Playoffs which seems to be the goal of the majority of Fulham fans. I spoke in a lot more detail of Hugo's knack of scoring key goals, and although Hugo's conversion rate isn't the best- with Hugo you're almost guaranteed to get a goal if he gets enough chances and I'd be quite worried about losing Hugo in January- especially considering he's coming into the last 6 Months of his contract.
Team for Sheffield Wednesday:
Bettinelli
Grimmer, Hutchinson, Bodurov, Stafylidis
Christensen, Parker, Fofana
Ruiz
McCormack Rodallega
Thanks as always for reading, as always any feedback is appreciated. Lets just hope we don't have to expunge this home game from our memory as we did the last one. Thanks again, and lets hope it isn't too cold down at the Cottage tomorrow- I nearly froze at the Man City home game at a similar time last season.
No comments:
Post a Comment