BFTG - Fulham Home

[genome]

On a different note, come on Forest, sneak a win tonight!

Forest are shite, as evidenced by tonight. No chance Leeds were going to drop points.

Their second goal was a peach though.

[RoyalBlue]

Also Gunter is the best right back in the championship

Pereira (Forest)
Fredericks (Fulham)
Iorfa (Wolves)
De Laet (Villa)
Bacuna (Villa)
Yedlin (Newcastle)
Jesus Gamez (Newcastle)
Hunt (Wednesday)
Christie (Derby)

When fit you don't think any of these are better than him?

I don't know I'm even humouring you tbh maybe it's because work is slow.

I honestly will rejoice the day Gunter oxf*rd off more than HRK.

Ha, I reckon if you were watching most of those week-in week-out you'd be moaning about them in no time. There's a reason (and sometimes multiple reasons) why those players are playing in the Championship.

Gunter is not the best RB in the Championship, but he's decent, mostly reliable, and wants to play here. If we get promoted, then we'll need a better one for the PL, but he's just fine for where we are now.

As an example, Fredericks is very fast, but his end-product is sporadic at best. Last time I checked, he had 3 League assists - you'd expect with the way Fulham play, and the number of goals they score, it would be higher. After all Gunter has a goal and 2 assists - so actually has done more attacking-wise.

I really do not get the rabid hatred that some of our 'support' display towards Gunter, nor do I get the 'love in' for Fredericks.

I agree with Gooding and Dellor, all of the defence, including Gunter, deserved praise last night. Gunter made a few excellent challenges and generally dealt well with their attacking threat. He also pushed forward and linked up well with the likes of McCleary and Beerens.

From what I saw of him through the fog in the first meeting at the Mad Stad, Fredericks looked really lively and a massive threat going forward. However, he was up against Harriott who didn't seem to have a clue how to defend.

Last night I thought he was pretty anonymous going forward until the latter stages of the game and, even then, his final product was pretty naff. And, as a defender, he had a pretty torrid time on many of the occasions when McCleary or Beerens were attacking down that side.

And back to the game as a whole, I really enjoyed it and thought we played some excellent football at times. With some more clinical finishing we could have repaid our earlier thrashing with interest.

[Top Flight]

Pereira (Forest)
Fredericks (Fulham)
Iorfa (Wolves)
De Laet (Villa)
Bacuna (Villa)
Yedlin (Newcastle)
Jesus Gamez (Newcastle)
Hunt (Wednesday)
Christie (Derby)

When fit you don't think any of these are better than him?

I don't know I'm even humouring you tbh maybe it's because work is slow.

I honestly will rejoice the day Gunter oxf*rd off more than HRK.

Ha, I reckon if you were watching most of those week-in week-out you'd be moaning about them in no time. There's a reason (and sometimes multiple reasons) why those players are playing in the Championship.

Gunter is not the best RB in the Championship, but he's decent, mostly reliable, and wants to play here. If we get promoted, then we'll need a better one for the PL, but he's just fine for where we are now.

As an example, Fredericks is very fast, but his end-product is sporadic at best. Last time I checked, he had 3 League assists - you'd expect with the way Fulham play, and the number of goals they score, it would be higher. After all Gunter has a goal and 2 assists - so actually has done more attacking-wise.

I really do not get the rabid hatred that some of our 'support' display towards Gunter, nor do I get the 'love in' for Fredericks.

I agree with Gooding and Dellor, all of the defence, including Gunter, deserved praise last night. Gunter made a few excellent challenges and generally dealt well with their attacking threat. He also pushed forward and linked up well with the likes of McCleary and Beerens.

From what I saw of him through the fog in the first meeting at the Mad Stad, Fredericks looked really lively and a massive threat going forward. However, he was up against Harriott who didn't seem to have a clue how to defend.

Last night I thought he was pretty anonymous going forward until the latter stages of the game and, even then, his final product was pretty naff. And, as a defender, he had a pretty torrid time on many of the occasions when McCleary or Beerens were attacking down that side.

And back to the game as a whole, I really enjoyed it and thought we played some excellent football at times. With some more clinical finishing we could have repaid our earlier thrashing with interest.

They just don't understand how good he is Royal Blue. Ian Royal is the biggest Gunter hater. But I wouldn't take his football judgement too seriously. Many years ago he said that Lampard was fat, slow and useless and wouldn't amount to anything. He turned out to be one of the greatest midfielders that this country has ever produced.

[Ian Royal]

That's about as accurate as anything you post Jay.

[sandman]

Gunter is the the Welsh Danilo. That's not a compliment.

[OLLIE KEARNS]

[quote="Top Flight"][quote="RoyalBlue"][quote="muirinho"]

"I really do not get the rabid hatred that some of our 'support' display towards Gunter, nor do I get the 'love in' for Fredericks"

The Gunter debate can rage elsewhere but just a nod to JS the other night. By playing McClearly and Beerens in relatively wide positions we were able to regularly exploit the space left by Fredericks and Malone, both of whom like to get forward as often as possible. Fredericks is very easy on the eye going forward but we got in so many times down his side that you have to question his defensive capabilities. He was the cause of the 3 on 1 in the second half just as one example and no doubt that's why he's in the Championship at this stage of his career and not the Prem.
One thing I did think JS might do the other night was play Gunter down that side as he's the one full back that could possibly have dealt with Fredericks pace when he went forward.

[royalp-we]

Why do you cut through? Why not just get on the M4 Jct11 which takes about 2/3mins to get to Jct10 A329?

^^^this, never had an issue getting to j11

I park up in Whitley and find it quicker/just as easy to travel through Earley to tuns junction and onto A329m down the bottom of Wokingham Road.

Last night either way I would have encountered the same issue I'd presume. That was lack of signage on the A329 to say that access to Bracknell was shut.

Oh I see, never parked in Whitley.

I came back down the M4 after the game and used Jct10 to Bracknell. I think it was just the A329 stretch from winnersh to M4 which was shut. But they never give notice - would be good if the club would say something if they are notified.

I'm sure you had a jolly journey after those final few minutes of the game anyway

[CountryRoyal]

On a different note, come on Forest, sneak a win tonight!

How the oxf*rd is Chris Wood on 20 goals already.

Also their second goal was a bit special.

[Westwood52]

Ref : Poor once again-got the penalties right-but if McShane's was a yellow there were at least three other instances when he failed to card Fulham for similar offences & what about all those Fulham hand balls-plus was Martin a straight red for the elbow.

Why do some fans bother commenting on referees performances. Seriously. You could not get a more clearer yellow card than mcshanes and there was not a similar incident like it.

Handballs, any of them deliberate? Thought not!

Oh and as for the elbow and straight red that only you saw, gee whizz!

But yeah, poor again.

Read it again re red card "was ?" I accept apologies in any foreign currency.

[RoyalBlue]

Ref : Poor once again-got the penalties right-but if McShane's was a yellow there were at least three other instances when he failed to card Fulham for similar offences & what about all those Fulham hand balls-plus was Martin a straight red for the elbow.

Why do some fans bother commenting on referees performances. Seriously. You could not get a more clearer yellow card than mcshanes and there was not a similar incident like it.

Handballs, any of them deliberate? Thought not!

Oh and as for the elbow and straight red that only you saw, gee whizz!

But yeah, poor again.

Read it again re red card "was ?" I accept apologies in any foreign currency.

Perhaps you could use some of that currency to purchase a question mark?

[paultheroyal]

Ref : Poor once again-got the penalties right-but if McShane's was a yellow there were at least three other instances when he failed to card Fulham for similar offences & what about all those Fulham hand balls-plus was Martin a straight red for the elbow.

Why do some fans bother commenting on referees performances. Seriously. You could not get a more clearer yellow card than mcshanes and there was not a similar incident like it.

Handballs, any of them deliberate? Thought not!

Oh and as for the elbow and straight red that only you saw, gee whizz!

But yeah, poor again.

Read it again re red card "was ?" I accept apologies in any foreign currency.

I literally have no idea what on earth you are blabbering on about now.

[marlowuk]

From what I saw of him through the fog in the first meeting at the Mad Stad, Fredericks looked really lively and a massive threat going forward. However, he was up against Harriott who didn't seem to have a clue how to defend.

Last night I thought he was pretty anonymous going forward until the latter stages of the game and, even then, his final product was pretty naff.

Fredericks was a massive threat but I thought Blackett did pretty well against him. Fredericks has pace to burn so Blackett stood off him, rather than lunging in, and was able to cope with his pace most of the time. Maybe because of this, Fredericks was not the threat he was at Craven Cottage or for the first half in the abandoned match.

[DeepReading]

Bit late, but have been busy lately. Also not quite sure how the formatting works, so I apologise if this looks sloppy.


I've been seeing a lot of praise for Stam's tactics last match, and although much of it is deserved I had a few problems with the way we played last match. Most of the problems came with the way we pressed. Pressing is effective for many formations, like the 4-3-3 we normally play, but in my opinion it does not work when playing the 5-3-2.

As the midfield 3 were tasked with pressing, this repeatedly left them out of position and the defence exposed. There was often a lot of space in front of the defence which allowed the Fulham attackers too much room to run at the defence. This leaves the defence with two options, step up to try and win the ball back or retreat towards the box. Early in the game when the defence backed off Aluko was sent through on goal and barring a poor finish Fulham could have taken the lead. I think this spooked the defence and we stepped up a lot more after this, which had mixed results. On one occasion Moore won the ball back and started the move which resulted in McCleary hitting the bar but on the other hand we also conceded good chances and the penalty as a result of a centre back deciding to step up.

In this image we see van den Berg returning to position after stepping up, and McShane moving forward to challenge for the ball meaning that there is a massive amount of space behind both of them. Challenging for the ball in this area of the pitch should be the job of one of the midfielders, but due to the way we pressed we see the that Kelly and Williams are stranded out of the left hand side unable to intervene. Because McShane doesn't win the ball back that takes another player out of the game and effectively leaves Fulham with a 4v3 on the edge of our box. With better decision making from Aluko, Piazon could have easily been sent through to equalise. Situations like this occurred far too often as a direct result of bad positioning from our midfield.

Here is the situation that led to the penalty. I've highlighted the midfield 3 as if they were better positioned (narrow and along the red line) Moore would not have had to step up and therefore create the space that the pass was played in to.

Now we've seen how not to defend, I want to show an example of a team that defends well using this formation. Antonio Conte's Juventus used this formation to win three consecutive Scudettos so I think they are a good example. I've stolen these examples from PDS's video on Conte's Juventus (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxnrdyUmqko) which I would recommend watching despite the poor quality. The video is only relevant up to 7:15 as it discusses their attacking play after that.

This shows how a team playing 5-3-2/3-5-2 should shape up defensively. Sitting deep, with limited pressing and a structured shape. The second picture shows a very similar situation to the penalty one. However, as Pogba has positioned himself to block passes infield the opposition is forced back and the move ends with a long ball into the box which is easily dealt with.

I think the obvious solution to this problem is to sit the midfield deeper and limit the amount of pressing they are asked to do and with the pace of players like McCleary, Beerens and Samuel up front I don't think this would harm us too much offensively. Along with this I would also drop Swift as I don't think we can afford both him and Kelly in this formation and the little man is on much better form. Evans would be the ideal replacement, with him moving into the central role of the 3 and Williams moving into Swift's position. VDB could also play that central role but I don't think he has the mobility required.

[Nameless]

Impressive debut post....

[Ian Royal]

Probably a bit much for HNA.

I'm not convinced by the comparisons, and I'd add we're relatively new to this shape and have largely been missing a more defensive minded midfielder in it. Swift is never going to offer much defensively, it's not his game. But Evans / JVDB, Kelly and one of Swift / Williams should work well.

This may be very wrong as I don't watch it myself, but my understanding was that the Italian league tends to be played at a slower temp. Plus, obviously Juventus are significantly better than we are, so they're going to naturally play any system better.