Normally at this stage I'd go through the goals- but as with the Wolves Home Game there is nothing to talk about goal wise so instead I'll talk about two other things. Firstly the team selection, Aside from the Striking Partnership and Parker's injury I'd say that was about as close to full strength as we could have gotten. I was a bit confused that Kit decided to use the game today to rest McCormack and Hugo in particular, although Kacaniklic is a quality player- Ruiz can fulfill the same role to the same quality. I had hoped we'd go all out against Sunderland because despite their Premier League stature they were definitely vulnerable as evidenced by the way the game played out. It was good to see Christensen back in the team- and I'm going to be really interested to see how Kit fits in everyone, if as I have a suspicion Fofana has a clause in his Loan Deal stipulating he has to play.
The other thing to talk about is the signing of Ashley/Jazz Richards, if I'm honest I thought we'd signed brothers when I saw the news. I was talking about signing Kyle Naughton at the start of the window and indirectly Naughton's signing has affected us as presumably Naughton was the security blanket Swansea needed in order to send one of their Right-Backs out on loan. While I wouldn't have seen Right-Back as our main priority because I thought Grimmer was growing at quite a good rate- despite being far from perfect, and as you'll know if you saw when I was talking about Robert Huth unless the signing would have been a marked improvement on a position in our Back 4 I wouldn't have disturbed a Settled Back 5. Whether Richards is an improvement on Grimmer we'll have to wait and see- but he's presumably come to play and his first test will be a tough one against Blackburn next week. This signing also means Hoogland is out for at least another month, and its a shame to see how limited Hoogland's appearances have been over the last few months- because if he hadn't picked up the injury the Golden Boot, Balon D'or, and BAFTA would have all been in Hoogland's trophy cabinet.
At points in the game it was Bettinelli v Defoe- and as shown by his Clean Sheet Bettinelli came out on top. He made several vital saves- as he does in nearly every game it seems, it does seem in Bettinelli we've finally found our long-term replacement for Schwarzer- although I did rate Stockdale he definitely had less favourable moments in a Fulham shirt; and although we wouldn't have said it at the start of the season I'm happy we sold Stockdale because it has (eventually) led to Bettinelli's emergence in the first team. According to TransferMarkt we've got Bettinelli under contract until the end of the 15/16 season but I'd still like to get him on a new deal ASAP to send out a statement to other clubs as much as antything else- because the type of performance he put in today against a Premier League club can be considered being "Shop Windowed".
I thought the defence coped reasonably well today, there were a few scary moments- most of them involving either Defoe or Larsson but they either recovered well or had Bettinelli bailing them out. Bodurov captained us for the first time today- and his performance was more than worthy of the armband. On the way back from the Forest game there was a long debate on 5 Live with regard to Adebayor being Captain when Spurs played Sheff. Utd and him having the wrong characteristics for the role- and as I've said Bodurov is far from a perfect player, but he's definitely one of our better and more consistent players and the partnership he's formed with Hutchinson since the Watford humiliation has made our defence look a lot more solid. Stafylidis didn't quite have the impact I predicted for the game today- and there was a rare occurence where Stafylidis didn't have to make a goal-line clearance. As I've already discussed with (insert first name) Richards, I think Grimmer is growing into the role game by game- and I sometimes think people forget that Grimmer is a natural Centre-Back.
I thought the midfield trio did extremely well today, as I predicted Christensen's return to the team had a direct impact on Fofana's performance- and he was outstanding today, and on balance our best outfield player for the game today. It was great to see Christensen start- and get 90 Minutes under his belt in the game today, and when it comes around to Blackburn we won't be throwing him into a League game completely cold coming off the back of an injury. Tunnicliffe's work rate was outstanding as usual- and was definitely a midfielder we needed in the game today, although nothing he did will make the Papers; his performance was understated but no less important to the overall result. I've seen some people slating Bryan from the game today, and it seems if he doesn't score a Hat-Trick, Solve the Problems in the Middle East and Find a Cure for Cancer it isn't good enough from Bryan. Yes, it wasn't his best game in a Fulham shirt- but he worked no less than some of the players around him and we've seen what happens when we don't have Bryan from our 4 Game goalless streak.
Woodrow and Dembele up front surprised me as I've already said, but they had a good first half- and in a game where there were very few clear cut chances in the First-Half they coped really well and worked hard to keep the pressure on Sunderland when their Defence had the ball. I'd hoped to see a bit more of Woodrow if I'm honest, but given the Red Card for Rodwell I can see why we wanted to turn the screw and bring on "proven" options like McCormack and Rodallega.
Speaking of McCormack and Rodallega, I thought the Subs Kit made were good today- even if they were for the wrong people. As I've already said Fofana played great today, as such I wouldn't have subbed him off- especially for Kacaniklic because it led to us being really congested in certain areas when we should have been pressing our 1 Man advantage. Kacaniklic in the #10 Role appears to be working wonders, as such I'd have brought Bryan off for Kaca as a like for like substitution and seen how the added pace from Kaca would have affected the Sunderland defence. Rodallega probably had our best chance of the game, and the Rodallega of a month ago would have arguably scored that- but as such it hit the post and that was that.
The Rodwell Red Card is probably the biggest talking point from the game, it was 2 Yellows- but it should have arguably been a straight red given the circumstances of his first tackle being two-footed. The Second Yellow was just bizarre and unnecessary on Rodwell's part, and summed up Sunderland's performance on the large part.
We're still in the Draw for the 5th Round, and with the results today- this year is as good a year as any for us to try and get to Wembley. We can definitely take Sunderland down at the Cottage in roughly a week and a half if we play to our potential and with some of the supposed "big teams" already out the path to Wembley just got a bit clearer and if we do get through the Replay we'll "only" be two rounds from Wembley- which is far from impossible.
Thanks for reading as always, At the end of the day we went to a Premier League team with a team where with the exception of Bryan the average age of the team was 21.4- and it wasn't as if Sunderland rested a load of players for the game either so we can take positives from that. The Replay was a fixture we could have done without, but we're still in the Cup- so we still have the Wembley Dream alive.
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