Hey! After nearly a month away from the Cottage we're back under the lights tomorrow night, and we're under the lights playing an out of sorts Watford team. Watford are currently on a four game losing streak, and we're on relatively good form. However with Fulham its never straight forward. After the Brighton game I'm very hopeful for the December fixtures, we showed a level of grittiness that we definitely didn't have under "him" earlier in the season- and previous managers as well. After Watford we have Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday, Bournemouth and Brighton, and I would argue we could get at least one point from all of these games.
Onto the game itself, Bettinelli was great against Brighton. He got done by another deflection, but aside from that his performance was great; and especially in the first half he kept us in the game, most notably with the two saves against Bent. I saw a story in the week that Chelsea had blocked an attempt by us to get Schwarzer, however I'm dismissing it as Paper Talk because I can't see any valid reason why we'd want to drop Bettinelli.
The defence is an interesting proposition for this game, Watford have undoubted pace in players like Anya and Vydra; and we need to make sure we aren't caught out. Hoogland and Amorebieta still aren't fit, which means Grimmer and Stafylidis will likely continue as our Full-Backs at least for tomorrows game. Both of these two have the advantage of being (relatively) quick, at least in comparison to Hoogland and Amorebieta. Whoever we play at Right-Back will have their work cut out against Ikechi Anya, and I hope we do something similar to Norwich where we play someone slightly ahead of Grimmer and double up on Anya as we did Redmond for large parts of the game. Whether that means bringing in Zverotic or playing a midfielder is another debate however its definitely a debate with some merit. With Burns suspension, Hutchinson came in and had his best game in a Fulham shirt- however Burn has done enough to get his place back in the team in my opinion, however Hutchinson putting in a good performance is a positive in terms of squad depth for us. Especially as we're now nearly a week into December with the January Window getting closer and we need to be looking at areas for improvement.
As said before, I think we need to double up on Anya in order to effectively deal with him. This would mean taking a place up in Midfield for a more defensive minded player. As such I'd look at bringing in Fofana- most likely in place of Hyndman and having Fofana play down the Right-Hand side of midfield. From what I saw of Fofana against Brighton I have high hopes, he can definitely run a lot- and he looked defensively sound in my opinion- and his physical stature as a huge part of his game I'd hope a combination of him and Grimmer could neutralise Anya. The other two Central Midfield spots are relatively straight-forward in my opinion. I would argue Christensen is the most in form Midfielder in the Championship at the minute, and Parker and his experience are also a must in our current team. I'm not sure if Bryan Ruiz is injured after going off against Brighton, however from what I can tell he wasn't mentioned in the press conference so I'm assuming he's fit and after his very good performance against Brighton I'd keep him in the team and try and eek out the final drops of his Fulham career before he most likely leaves in January.
The striker situation is also very straight forward for this game. The partnership of Rodallega and McCormack, although it didn't yield against Brighton still looked very dangerous. Its interesting there is discussion already of a new contract for Hugo, however I'd hold off on talks until at least March when its clear whether we'll be in the mix for Promotion; or we'll be in the very familiar position of comfortable Mid-Table, I don't want to sound harsh when I say Hugo has found his level- at this stage of his career. If it is looking likely we will be spending a 2nd season in the Championship I'd renew Hugo's contract without a second thought. The last time we were at the Cottage McCormack got his first home goal, and we can only hope he continues tomorrow.
Starting XI for Watford:
Bettinelli
Grimmer, Bodurov, Burn, Stafylidis
Fofana, Parker, LVC
Ruiz
Rodallega McCormack
Tomorrow will be an interesting game, despite Watfords current form- they're still a very capable team and in this four game losing streak they've lost by a 1 goal margin each time. I wish Billy McKinlay was still in charge of Watford for another homecoming, as such he isn't- that won't detract from what'll be a very interesting game under the lights, our third friday game in less than two months.
Thanks as always for reading, as always any feedback is appreciated. Whether you're at the game like I'll be or you're watching on TV lets hope for a good performance, especially for those going to the game because it'll be freezing tomorrow. Thanks again.
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