Well, that was a thing. I'd like to start off by saying the small amount of boos at the end was idiotic, its not that I'm necessarily satisfied with the performance- and in the Cup a Draw doesn't mean much, but drawing with a team as in form as Wolves are currently shouldn't be underestimated.
I usually do a paragraph talking about the goals scored... Instead I'll talk about the team selection, and what it meant- at least in my opinion. Firstly, I'm both glad and annoyed we showed respect for the Cup. I said in my preview that if it was 50-50 on Christensen for the game today we shouldn't have taken the risk given there were no points up for grabs, so naturally I raised an eyebrow when I saw he was starting today- and of course he was subbed off after half-an-hour. Perhaps its a relief that he didn't do any further damage and he just tweaked the injury he already had, but in my opinion it was fairly naive from Kit and the Medical Staff to rush Christensen back as quickly as he did. Rodallega is looking a bit jaded in my opinion- which is why I thought we should have rested him today and I hope long-term we don't regret passing on the opportunity to rest him. It was perhaps a good thing we kept the same Back 5 today, and the Clean Sheet today will hopefully help to build the confidence of the defence, and you can't ignore that that is now 3 Clean Sheets from out last 5 Games- which given our defensive woes both this- and lasts season is a sign we're taking a step in the right direction, even if we were extremely lucky we did so today.
I thought Bettinelli was definitely one of our better players today- as he is in most games in all honesty. He made a few good saves today, although he was a Clarke howler away from losing his Clean Sheet- but the good saves he made were at crucial times in the match and I was generally happy with him, although there is very few games were I wouldn't find it hard to praise Bettinelli- and he is definitely one of our players of the season at this stage.
As with Bettinelli, the Defence keeping a Clean Sheet- despite the circumstances of the Clean Sheet can only be a good thing for us in the long run. The unchanged defence I thought coped generally with the threat Wolves posed- especially in comparison to how we dealt with Wolves back in August. It is also interesting to compare the two defences- as this is the first time we've played what I would label as a "First Team" against a team we faced under "him".
Back 5: Fulham 0-1 Wolves (20th August)
Joronen
Hoogland, Bodurov, Burgess, Kavanagh
Back 5: Fulham 0-0 (Today)
Bettinelli
Grimmer, Hutchinson, Bodurov, Stafylidis
There is only one player who's held onto their position in the Back 5 of the team, and that is definitely a symbol of how we've progressed both in terms of team selection and defensive "steel" since we brought Kit in.
The Midfield was interesting today, firstly I would like to think Bryan wasn't fully fit- but given the fact we played LVC I'm not sure that would have been a massive issue. Bryan, for all the stick he gets is still a very good player- whether some Fulham fans want to admit it or not, and I would have had him in the team today in a heartbeat as opposed to warming the bench. Onto the midfield we did have on the pitch today. I think Christensen is not only an amazing talent individually, but I think we need him to balance the midfield- and we definitely looked worse off in the midfield once Christensen went off, despite Kavanagh's impressive performance. I thought Fofana looked relatively dangerous today, but he is still definitely lacking something from his game- although if he wasn't lacking something I doubt he'd be at us in the first place. I thought it was summed up perfectly in the Second Half when he went clean through on goal- and sort of tried to chip Ikeme and blew what I would label a "clear goalscoring opportunity". Of course the guy who put him through for that chance was Scott Parker, who I thought had a good game today. Obviously I don't watch training every day so I can't really speak for it- but purely from an outsiders point of view I'm worried about Parkers performances tailing off around March/April time when if anything we'll need them to improve if we are in and around the playoffs. Considering how deep McCormack was playing again, I'm putting him in the midfield section for the game today. I thought McCormack played well all things considered, and the position he had to be in today- I don't know if its a lack of faith in the three in behind without Christensen from McCormack or Kit, but McCormack playing so deep isn't good for our goalscoring threat from both him- and the other attacking threats on the pitch.
As I've already said, Rodallega looked really jaded today- at least in my opinion. He simply he doesn't look as sharp as he was looking a month or two ago, not just because of his lack of goals- but also his play as a whole. I thought Woodrow looked pretty good today, he's definitely someone- or a player of his type that we've been missing over the last few games where we've needed an extra dimension to our game, and another reason why we should consider recalling Matt Smith- especially now he's gotten some confidence scoring 4 in 3 for Bristol City.
The Subs we brought on I thought looked really good today- crucially they also looked hungry, something we definitely looked devoid of against Brighton in particular. Kavanagh had the majority of the game to play- and I'd say he was our best, or at least one of our best players of the game today. Similar to Dembele, he looked really up for it today- and although he didn't score I thought he did look really good.
We're back in League Action next weekend against Cardiff- and the team selection will be interesting with the options we have after the recalls, and perhaps some new signings between now and next weekend.
Thanks for reading as always, this was a hard game to talk about- some of this might have been a bit elongated, but in our first 0-0 since 9th February 2013 there weren't that many talking points from the game. Despite the lack of shots on target, we're still in the hat for the next round- and on top of that we've kept a Clean Sheet, so onward to next week and the Replay.
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