Hi, its another Review- and another Review of a crushingly disappointing performance and loss. It's gotten to the point where I'm just numb to all of these losses as such this isn't going to be anywhere a rant- just because I just don't have the energy to put into getting upset with Fulham anymore, and the summer can't come quick enough.
Before I get onto the Review something really annoyed me today, and it wasn't on the pitch. When the game was over and everyone went their separate ways the police had completely blocked off access to the Park for where you usually can for us home fans. I'll happily have people call me naive for this but surely there was a better way to handle the crowd than just completely segregating the home and away fans on the way out. Yes, some Brentford had a few things that went bang- and I'm not saying there wouldn't be any trouble- but surely a heavy police presence would've stopped any crowd trouble there would have been. In short I think the police just wanted an easy ride at the expense of all the Home Fans.
Now onto something I'm considering just stopping doing because it's depressing having to relive the goals. The first one was the most annoying one from my point of view. For the first 15-20 Minutes I thought we'd gotten our act together because we'd limited Brentford to Longshots and rarely allowed them to string together a few passes before we'd pressured them back into their own half. Then typical of Fulham we just gave up trying to put pressure on them and Dallas had way too much time and space to line-up his shot and leave Bettinelli helpless. I can pretty much copy & paste that sentence for the Second Goal, it was pretty much a carbon copy apart from it went in the Top Corner rather than the Bottom. Our goal was weird, My first instinct was that it wasn't a foul on Husband- but then again I sit on the wrong side of the Hammersmith End to get a proper view of the foul, I wasn't complaining and you'd have expected McCormack to score it. I know two wrongs don't make a right- but I do think that was the refs mentality when he denied us a second Penalty when Smith went down at around the 85th Minute mark. The Third goal was another peach- this time from a Free-Kick, in previous games I've said Bettinelli couldn't have done anything for the goals and this game was never more apparent of that fact- likewise with the Jota goal it was just a really good strike.
Aside from picking the ball out of the back of the net Bettinelli barely had a thing to do- he made a few saves but none that were what you'd call "hard" saves to make and it's just one of those games where the players in front of Bettinelli let him down (again).
Yes, Jack Grimmer wasn't having the best game of his life- but Kit taking him off for Hoogland at Half-Time has really annoyed me. In the Right-Back role Grimmer offers more than Hoogland and crucially he's a lot quicker and considering we were only 1 goal down when the sub was made it felt like poor man management, and management in general from Kit. I thought Michael Turner was one of our better players today- yes we conceded four but none of the goals we down to massive defensive errors or poor defending. Bodurov's injury played a part in the second and third goals- and going back to subs it was stupid for us to bring on Kavanagh instead of Hugo or even Stafylidis who I do rate going forward when we were pushing for a goal- and Bodurov's injury definitely played a part in the 3rd & 4th goals, but you can hardly blame Bodurov for defending essentially on one leg. The one thing about the Championship that annoys me is you don't always get Press Conferences before games so we're going to have to take a stab in the dark as to whether Bodurov is fit enough or if by default we'll be playing Dan Burn & Michael Turner- and that Centre-Back pairing really worries me. I thought Husband was arguably our best player today- he won the penalty but he was one of the players who actually looked like making something happen and he played a part in pretty much every attacking move we created today (albeit there weren't that many).
The Midfield annoyed me today, apparently Parker was ill which is understandable it just didn't help Kit had said Parker would be back today. The Midfield we had on the pitch was pretty ineffective in general. Danny Guthrie had his moments but I think he's still a bit of a way of being his absolute best and being fully fit, and he was dead on his feet by the 75th Minute- which of course we could do nothing about because we'd used all three subs. Fofana was pretty ineffective today, he was completely played out of the game which you can only say was good from a Brentford point of view- Tunnicliffe was also really ineffective today, sometimes I have to remind myself he's only 22 and he still has time to develop just because he shows moments of being good and then wastes them or gives the ball away, in short all the pieces are there Tunnicliffe just hasn't put them all together yet. Kacaniklic was pretty wasteful today, there are some games where Kacaniklic is the player we all know he can be and he's wreaking havoc- and then there are games like today where he looks like doing something and then simply doesn't.
One of the players who I thought had a guaranteed place in the team after the Huddersfield game was Matt Smith- so of course he was benched- and while I do rate Woodrow; for the position we're in Smith is a lot better- especially coming up against a defence like Brentford, and sure enough Woodrow was completely neutralised and subbed off relatively quickly in the Second Half. I'd hoped McCormack's mini-break via Injury would have reinvigorated him heading into the last 7 games of the season- it seems as though that hope hasn't came true. With the exception of him scoring the Penalty I can't remember a single thing McCormack did all game.
As I've already said, I'm not sure why we subbed on Hoogland to play Right-Back- surely Kit has had enough time to realise Hoogland isn't good enough to be a Right-Back; I've said it on numerous occasions that Hoogland should be played as a DM Enforcer who mops up everything and links play up around the half-way line- which we got a masterclass in from Diagouraga today- or we simply bench him because he doesn't fit the system we're playing. Smith caused no end of problems for Brentford when he came on- just his presence draws defenders in and draws fouls, and as I've said he could/should have won a penalty. Kavanagh didn't have much time to make an impact- but on the same notion he wasn't the player to make an impact given the situation we were in when he came on.
Today's game wasn't a 4-1 game, but we can't afford to basically give up on Football in patches during a game and expect to get something, especially against teams like Brentford who are clinical and will punish you. Combine that with some poor decision making on and off the pitch leading into the game and during the game we were dead in the water. That said all we can do is move on and focus on The Valley on Tuesday and hope it get's better.
Thanks for reading as always, even if it is depressing. Thankfully there wasn't much movement below us in the Table with Millwall being the only team to pick up points meaning we're now 7 Points Clear with 6 Games left which isn't exactly secure- and bare in mind we've still got Rotherham and Wigan to come at the Cottage we still very much have to be mindful of the drop and the teams below us. Anyway thanks for reading, I'll be back with a Preview on Monday- and don't let the result ruin your long weekend that much.
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