Well, if you were being positive about this- you'd say that today was most definitely a wake-up call both for Jokanovic and the players. I'll start this off with two big things. I don't think we were nearly as bad as some people have been saying. It wasn't a good performance, I'm not saying it was- however the fact we managed to keep it to 1-0 and still looked a bit of a threat on the break means we're already ahead of where we were in certain games last season. The most direct comparison I can think of is the Wolves Home game from last season where Cairney got sent off- and we completely fell apart in that game.
To be blunt, I think we just overthought pretty much everything today. Going into the game there was all of this talk about how Birmingham were a good counter-attacking team and how we'd have to be wary of them on the break. So we pretty much played presumably how we prepared where we weren't expecting much pressure on Madl, Kalas and Button to play out from the back and try and play the "tiki-taka" style of play. I honestly lost count of the number of mistakes and times we lost the ball in our own half today, and the main casualty of all of it was of course Michael Madl.
Speaking of Michael Madl, this brings me on to my second big point to start things off. The Ref was pretty good on the whole today. Both Penalties were Penalties from my point of view, the second one especially was entirely our fault for once again trying to pass it out from the back. Both Madl Yellow Cards were deserving, and on the whole I thought the Ref did pretty well. The Ref wasn't perfect, I'm not saying he was- but to suggest the Ref has somehow cost us the game is moronic. Yes, there was the odd foul, advantage etc. that the Ref should have done better with- but he got all of the key decisions spot on.
There's not really much to say about the Goals section of this Review. The penalty was a penalty, and Donaldson didn't make the same mistake he did for Birmingham's first penalty of the day and put it in.
One of the few positives today was David Button. The obvious thing he did was save the first penalty, and on the whole I thought he did pretty well. When you go down to 10 Men you expect the Keeper to be busy, and for the most part I thought he did well. He did have a few moments with the ball at his feet that were a bit scary, so that's something we have to think about if we want to keep playing the way we did today and hope it's more effective.
While I've missed a couple of games, the general feeling from me in the games I've seen and the general consensus I've seen is that the Madl and Kalas pairing's performed quite well in the first month of the season. So, I can only conclude that this was by far and a way the worst performance for both of them in a Fulham shirt so far.
I initially thought Kalas had been away with the Czech Republic and that was why he was a bit off the pace, but he wasn't- so I'm not really sure what the excuse can be for him. He just looked "off", with the most costly of the mistakes he made being when he under-hit a pass to Madl which allowed Donaldson to run onto it and cause Madl to make the foul for his second yellow. Speaking of Madl, he was unlucky to be Red Carded in the sense that he shouldn't have been put in the position of having to get the second yellow. However, he wasn't really there as well today even before he gave away the Penalty and got sent off. In short, it'll interesting to see how Sigurdsson plays on Tuesday- because after today the starting position is there for the taking.
Scott Malone played alright today, he's definitely at the higher end of performances today- although that's not really saying much. If I had to really criticise one thing from Malone today it's the fact that I'm pretty sure he didn't reach a Fulham player with a single cross today- and he put in quite a few. There was also the weird moment late on when a cross reached him and he sort of half went for goal, half tried to knock it down for Martin which blew the chance. However, those are small critiques- and on the whole he did do alright.
I was already talking about my concerns with Denis Odoi from a defensive standpoint before I went to New York and missed a few reviews. However, we were winning- so I think a few people almost overlooked how suspect he looked at certain times. Now we've lost, the spotlight's a bit more on him- and he hasn't come out looking good. He was pretty ineffective going forward, as everyone was today- and then positionally he was a bit all over the place. I still think it's too early to judge Odoi, which is why I'm not being as harsh as I perhaps could be- and once Odoi's gone to Left-Back and had a run there I think it'll be a lot more of an accurate reflection on him.
In Jokanovic's Post-Match interview he said he "lost Scott Parker at the last moment" for today, and wow did we miss him. Kevin McDonald's been great for the most part since he's come in, and that was with either Tunnicliffe or Parker next to him. They gave him a bit of a safety net so to speak, and that in turn gave him a bit more confidence to go forward with the ball. Having Johansen and then Jozabed next to him, who are more attack-minded than McDonald meant he didn't have that today- and it showed in his performance in the 1st Half. Basically, today we've learned that McDonald can't be the "anchor" in our Midfield which lets the other Midfielders press high up the pitch. He did alright at Centre-Back all things considered- but let's hope he doesn't have to play there again in a hurry and that Parker's back ASAP so he can get back to his best.
I wasn't surprised by the lack of Martin, Sigurdsson and Kebano in the Starting XI- because with the depth in our squad we could afford to not play them when they weren't really 100% after their respective International games. I can only assume Johansen wasn't actually going to start until we "lost Scott Parker at the last moment" because he just didn't look up to it at all today. I'm not going to write him off after a 30 Minute performance surrounded by a generally underperforming team when he's just come back from Norway 4 or 5 days ago- but it's safe to say it wasn't the debut he would've hoped for.
Tom Cairney's set a very high bar for performances in August, and he never really came anywhere close to it today. He had the one run in the second half where he took on 2 or 3 players and got a shot away- but in general he was pretty ineffective today. We can only hope for a better performance on Tuesday, and I don't have any doubt he can turn it around quickly. His and Ayité's ineffective games was what really cost us today in my opinion. A consistent feature of us in August has been our ability to attack with pace and stretch defences- and neither Cairney on the right or Ayité on the left and then in the middle got anywhere close to even worrying the Birmingham defence for the vast majority of the game.
Sone Aluko was just completely out of the game today. I think we switched Aluko and Ayité in the 1st Half to try and get Aluko on the ball a bit more- but then the Madl Red Card happened not soon after and blew that plan out of the water. Then 2nd Half when he was played up-front he was completely ineffective, which is perhaps understandable before he went back out to the right when Martin came on to be completely ineffective. Notice the theme here? For Burton I personally want to see Cairney played in the #10 role, with Kebano and Ayité on the wings. That's not to say I've given up on Aluko already, but we've got the options- so we might as well try some different combinations.
As I've already said, I had a feeling our International players would be rested- meaning Chris Martin would have to wait for his first start. So, it wasn't a surprise to me that Matt Smith did start the game. However, the fact we had a game plan of passing it out from the back and generally trying to play "good" Football meant we were pretty much playing with 10 men today. I can only hope Smith's days of starting in the league are now pretty much over barring an injury to Martin. With all that said, I wouldn't have taken him off at Half-Time. Considering we were down to 10 Men having Smith up-front who can at least hold the ball up and give Button and the defenders someone to aim at would've been the smart thing to do in my opinion. Instead we had Aluko in that position which was baffling to me, and Jokanovic has to take the blame for it.
Jozabed gave a pretty good account of himself today all things considered. It was far from a perfect performance, but I thought he did pretty well in the Midfield considering the circumstances and given how ineffective Aluko was- if we keep Cairney on the right then Jozabed has to be right in consideration for playing in the #10 role. Kebano looked really lively when he came on, and from an attacking sense he was probably our best player today. That's not really saying much, but he does look like a really good signing for us. Getting subbed on with 15 minutes to go, when the team's down to 10 men, 1-0 down and not really looking up to much isn't an ideal way to make your debut as a Striker which was the case with Chris Martin. In short, you can't really make a judgement of Martin from today.
Our unbeaten run is officially over, but the good thing in a way is that we can't mourn the loss of it- because before we know it we'll be back at the Cottage for Burton where we can hopefully put in a better performance and get a better result as well. The fact is, even the absolute best teams have off days- and we're not one of the "absolute best teams". Expect more performances like the one day throughout the season to be blunt, but hopefully they'll be as limited as humanly possible. We now have to quickly move on to Tuesday, where hopefully the Review will be a lot more positive than this one has been.
Thanks for reading as always. The Reviews are officially back as of today, so hopefully you'll be coming back after the game on Tuesday and beyond for them. I was expecting days like today this season, and today doesn't completely write off the month of games we've had before it. In my Newcastle Preview I said I wanted 12 or 13 points from our first 10 games- and we're well on course to beat that goal. Thanks again for reading, hopefully you have a good week- and let's just hope we can bounce back quickly. I definitely have more faith in our ability to bounce back under Jokanovic than any of our recent managers.
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