Hello! Well, this week hasn't been half-bad has it? 3 (League) Wins in a Row for the first time in 4 Years, going from 1 Point clear of Relegation to 10 with 5 Games left to play- and I think the best thing is, we're actually looking like a proper team. Before I dive into the game, and it's definitely an interesting one- I thought I'd make a point of highlight just how weird our season's been. Of the team that started today, only one of them started the reverse fixture all the way back in August;
Bettinelli (Injured/Bench)
Stearman (Wolves)
Madl (Sturm Graz)
Amorebieta (Exiled)
Garbutt (Injured)
Tunnicliffe (Suspended)
Parker (Injured)
Ince (Brighton)
Hyndman (Exiled/Bench)
McCormack (Started)
Dembele (Bench)
It's been a mental season, and I think if you put a £5 Bet on for Both Teams to Score in the Cardiff game in August- and then just kept putting a £5 Bet on BTTS in every game after you'd be a Millionaire by now. The Cardiff Goal was coming, and I'll fully admit it. The First-Half from Cardiff was probably one of the best I've seen from a team at the Cottage this season. They restricted us to one Hyndman Shot after a mazy run and a McCormack Free-Kick in-terms of testing Marshall- and they'd had us pressed into our own Half for the majority of the Half. It was a good ball in from Gunnarsson and with how stretched our defence was at the time, Immers ended up with a Free-Header that Bettinelli couldn't do much to stop.
The two Fulham Goals were great for different reasons. I was one of Parker's biggest critics under Kit. He had the occasional game like Derby where he was suddenly the Parker we'd all seen him be at West Ham and to a lesser extent Spurs and England. I'm not saying Parker's been playing at that level under Jokanovic- but he's been absolutely immense. In short, if there was a player who's deserved a Goal on the back of how they've been playing lately- it is Scott Parker. I doubt Parker's wages could be met, and even if they could it's probably best he doesn't stay on- at least not as a Player. However, if we could keep Parker around as a Coach I'd be really happy because he's exactly the sort of character we need in and around the Squad.
Talking about deserved goals, we move onto a Last Minute Winner that's actually been scored in our favour- again for the first time in god knows how long. When McCormack had hit the bar a minute or so earlier, I thought we'd be putting this game down to one of those "fine margins" games that just didn't quite go our way after how the 2nd Half had gone. Then, from a Corner there was a bit of a scramble and I thought Christensen had blown the chance when he took a really heavy touch and took it into the 6 Yard Box area. But he didn't, he managed to cut it back to Hyndman and it was a really good finish from him to get the goal and win on his Birthday.
Apart from obviously the Goal we conceded, which is pretty much a given in every game we play- I don't really remember Bettinelli having much to do. There were a couple of shots straight at him, and obviously the one that hit the Post at the end of the 1st Half that worried everyone- but apart from that Cardiff were largely restricted to Long-Shots and half chances.
I'm not sure if Michael Madl was injured, or it was a tactical move- my instinct at the time of Madl's Substitution was it was the former because although we conceded I thought Madl had a decent half. He's by far and a way the best actual defender we've got at the Club- and while it's not confirmed yet, I think we can tentatively start planning for next season in the Championship and Madl should definitely be in those plans.
I thought Stearman in particular of the Defenders that played the 90 Minutes today was absolutely immense today. It didn't all go his way in the 1st Half, and there were a couple of worrying moments when Stearman was up against Zohore in the 2nd Half- but overall he's been great today. Especially 2nd Half when we were trying everything to get that 2nd Goal after such a quick first one- Stearman was key in retrieving the ball and getting the ball back up the pitch as quickly as possible. Amorebieta's had another good game on the whole, it's not a coincidence that with Jokanovic finally settling on a Centre-Back pairing and sticking with it that doesn't involve Burn in Madl and Amorebieta (and Stearman and Amorebieta 2nd Half) that we've started winning and conceding less. Garbutt looked a bit iffy today and some of his "challenges" were definitely "interesting" and it's a miracle he wasn't booked. Of the Loan Players on show today- he's probably the only one I'd be more than happy to see the back of in the Summer.
I talked about it on Tuesday as well, Parker turned into another "Captains Innings" today. I think it was pretty much a given that he wasn't going the distance today- but he was just top quality for the 75 or so minutes he was on the pitch. I don't know what Jokanovic has done/said to him, but this is by far the best and most consistent Parker's been since he's been at Fulham- so full credit to both. Obviously passing is a big part of Football, but take passing out of the equation and Rohan Ince has had a near-perfect game today.
He's the player I've basically said we've been lacking since I started doing these Reviews (and Previews, I haven't completely abandoned them) in that he's a proper Holding-Mid that can sit in-front of the Back Four and protect them. Going back to my earlier point, it's not a coincident that we're unbeaten since Ince has come back into the team and we've only conceded 1 in 4 consecutive games as opposed to 2 or 3. I thought Hoogland could have done the job if Kit allowed him to, we only really had Mattila for the first half of the season- and now in Ince we've got someone who can really do the job. To me, it looked like Tunnicliffe had picked up a bit of a knock before he was Subbed today- he definitely wasn't moving completely freely let's put it that way.
Given what Jokanovic has said in regard to Hyndman Post-Match, with they key line to me being "I believe in the future he can be a very important player for us" it appears as though Slavisa at least hasn't lost hope of retaining Hyndman next season. Do I think he will? The answer really is I don't know at this point. I'm not sure how long Cairney's out for, but I wouldn't be leaving Hyndman out of the team for our last 5 games regardless and I would hope that Hyndman's main motivation would be to play Football- so if Jokanovic could give him sort of guarantee in-terms of game-time who knows.
If Hyndman can perform like he did today, there wouldn't even need to be some sort of guarantee because Hyndman will effectively be picking himself. He was just absolutely immense from Minute 1 and his performance today- as with Parker's recently was more than deserving of a goal.
It was a weird game for McCormack and Dembele today. Dembele had the really good Assist for Parker, but especially in his case it just didn't quite fall for him today. His performance wasn't really lacking much, it was just a small margin on things like a Long-Ball that fell just too far in-front of Dembele or Marshall just getting to the ball in-front of Dembele from a Through-Ball or Fredericks putting the ball just behind him when he tried to square it rather than shoot that went wrong for him today. It was good in a way that Dembele and McCormack didn't score, because they've more than done their bit in trying to keep us up- and we've finally got someone other than those two or Cairney on the score sheet. McCormack's just such a special player, and I'm thankful that we're staying up because it most likely means we're getting at least 1 more season out of him in a Fulham Shirt.
Depending on what the Madl Sub was for, all Three Subs were really out of necessity today- but they were definitely effective. If Fredericks had the confidence to shoot when he was put through on Goal we may have been 2-1 up a lot sooner than we ended up being, but instead he tried to square it to Dembele and the chance was blown when he put it slightly behind him. Aside from that, I thought Fredericks was decent- it looked like he picked up an injury in the last 10 or so minutes because he was limping around and not getting up and down the line as much as he was before. Indecisiveness and Injuries are really all that's holding Fredericks back from a really successful career at Fulham.
Christensen obviously got the Assist for Hyndman, and it was good to see him back- even if this season hasn't really gone his way I haven't completely lost hope in him given his age and general experience. Hopefully a Summer under Jokanovic, Gray and the other Coaches we've got in now can get him back to the level we know he's capable of. Baird was decent on the whole today, although he didn't really have much to do other than not slow down the play when we tried to push the ball up the pitch. It was great to see how Baird celebrated after the game, and you can tell this Club means a lot to him.
I'm not going to go over-board, but I genuinely think now that we're playing with the fight to match our quality- and especially now, we're playing with considerably less pressure than a Week Ago we could possibly get something out of Brighton. Even if we don't, and I've said this throughout I don't care how we stay up as long as we do. The Brighton Review will be up on Friday Night, and then we head into a run of 4 winnable games in my opinion. Thanks for reading as always, enjoy this week everyone- it doesn't get much better.
No comments:
Post a Comment