Hello! Its another Preview, and we're back on Sky for a Friday night game against Bournemouth. Unless I'm mistaken- and I've generally tried to block out the last few months, our last Friday Night game was Watford so the only way is up right?
If the last two games didn't happen I'd be writing this game off- but since we've beaten Derby and made Watford look ordinary I'm going into the game tomorrow night with a sense of cautious optimism. Bournemouth haven't been great lately, before Tuesday they'd gone 5 games without a win- and they only won on Tuesday via a questionably Penalty decision; and if we can replicate the performance levels of the last two games we'll at the very least give Bournemouth a huge run for their money- and as with the prior two games as long as we have a go and show guts I won't mind the end result.
Of course Bettinelli will continue in goal, I thought he could have done a bit better for the goal- in terms of where he hit the ball away on Tuesday; but thats a real splitting hairs scenario. While he obviously couldn't come for the Corner on Tuesday- I'd like to see him command the box a bit more from Set-Pieces and come out confidently; he won't always gather the ball but it'll give the defenders confidence knowing he is confident enough to do so- I hope that made sense.
The Jazz Richards Red Card- or rather lack thereof on Tuesday was arguably the biggest talking point from the game, especially coming off the heels of the Nemanja Matic incident- but I still rate him as a defender, and he hasn't gotten a ban so he should be continuing in the team without a doubt; out the current loan players we have Richards would be the guy I'd be most keen to sign permanently. In Kit's Press Conference he sort of hinted one of/both Hoogland and Amorebieta will start, as I've said seemingly a million times Hoogland is a Midfielder- and while I'm not sure what Amorebieta's fitness is like I highly doubt he's fit enough to start given his lack of U21 Action. As such the defence will be unchanged in my opinion- it'll be interesting to see where Kit plays Amorebieta once he does come back, because as I've said a lot lately I'd be playing Amorebieta as a Centre-Back- but perhaps out of necessity given Stafylidis' schizophrenic performances he might have to be pushed out to Left-Back.
Scott Parker's back, I said in my Watford Preview that if the level of performance we got from Parker against Derby could be replicated with him not playing Saturday/Tuesday/Saturday I'd happily see him play less games if it meant a better performance level. It was his best game in a Fulham shirt by a mile- and if he can get to a level somewhat replicating that tomorrow we'll be in business. One thing I didn't see in Kit's Press Conference was any reference to Christensen so I'm going to assume he's out for the game tomorrow; which makes the Midfield Selection a bit more straightforward. As I've already said Hoogland is a Midfielder- so if he is going to start it would push Parker a bit further forward playing on the Right-Side; if he isn't the midfield selection is pretty straightforward in my opinion with Tunnicliffe and Kavanagh occupying the roles in the Midfield three. Then we get to Bryan Ruiz who deserves his place in the Fulham team for as long as he is still breathing, its strange when Bryan picked up a knock after the Bournemouth games on Boxing Day I thought Bournemouth would be his last game for us- thankfully it wasn't though because the statistic of us not winning a game without him in the team still remains.
Matt Smith is not the messiah. We looked better when he came on without a doubt- but Smith's height draws people in no matter what; and contrasting him coming on to the time period we had before he came on- and without Woodrow it was night and day. That said I don't think we should start him ahead of Woodrow and McCormack as although they didn't score on Tuesday- they probably should have done, and on another day they would have. This leaves Hugo somewhat out in the cold- and without any foundation whatsoever I think Hugo might have been told we aren't renewing his deal- because he just doesn't look at all motivated at the moment; and with the utmost respect to Hugo he isn't of the best quality, so we really need him to be motivated to be worthy of a place in the team.
It was interesting Kit made a point of saying Pat Roberts will be with the U21s this week, while I still think we should Loan him out I'll direct you guys to my Birmingham Preview where I said we should be cashing in on him this Summer. I think Kacaniklic is a player for next season really- the system we're playing to get us over the line doesn't really suit him, but I'm hoping Kit (or whoever is in charge) recognises we need width to try and get in the Playoffs and with Bryan surely going this Summer we'll have to surely. I'd like to see us try and buy someone like Matt Jarvis and have Kaca on the other wing because provided we get the Central-Mid pairing right those two on the wing would be lethal.
Team for Bournemouth
Bettinelli
Richards, Hutchinson, Bodurov, Stafylidis
Tunnicliffe, Parker, Kavanagh
Bryan
McCormack Woodrow
Potentially
Bettinelli
Richards, Hutchinson, Bodurov, Stafylidis
Parker, Hoogland, Tunnicliffe
Bryan
McCormack Woodrow
It was an interesting note to see Alan Curbishley has joined up with Kit until the End of the Season, which I've literally just discovered at 10 to 5 when I was looking over this to make sure I haven't made any glaring errors. One thing I have seen almost universal support for was to bring in someone to assist Kit in either an Assistant or DOF role- so we've gotten what we wanted, and Curbishley's experience will hopefully come good; as long as Ray Wilkins isn't on his hem I don't mind.
As I've already said I'm cautiously optimistic for the game tomorrow- if we can get to the level of performance we've reached in the last two games, and can defend a corner we should be coming away from the Cottage with a point minimum. Whether or not we can produce that level of performance three times within a week remains to be seen however- and I'm still not convinced we can, but I'll happily be proven wrong.
Thanks for reading as ever, I'm a lot happier than I was a week ago- I'm sure we as Fulham fans accept we won't be winning every week, and while people were talking about Playoffs our squad wasn't ready for the proper push this season; that said we do expect so see fully-committed performances with players going for it, and we've seen that twice in the last week so I can't really question us. Hopefully it continues tomorrow and when I'm going back through Bishops Park I have a smile on my face. As always the Review will be up late tomorrow so stay tuned for that and have a Good Friday.
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