Sweet Caroline came whistling down the phone to Masky just now...no not Neil Diamond, no not Roger Whitaker....no it was a geezer from Fulham...a Mike Hunt. Now he said Alan Mullery to mark his comeback with a start.....Harry Arter got a shot on target the other night and “do us a favour!”...he only went and scored!” Blimey! Reckons he’s got his sights in order now, and is gunning for revenge....got sent off earlier this season unfairly he says! Bobby Decordova-Reid apparantly has an issue too, feels he was talked into joining us, not realising NW was manager! Our fault, not his...big signing on fee had nothing to do with it I suppose! A nice tough game for us, we will do okay...1-1 or 2-1 to us! He then hung up, not sure where he went...anyone? Anyone seen Mike Hunt?
Agreed but Murphy will probably be benched as Hoilett supports his full back better and I feel that might be needed.
Paterson starts and Hoilett. Every picture tells a story. Rest of team as per... Strong bench though....
Cardiff 12Smithies 2Sanderson 4Morrison 16Nelson 3Bennett 7Bacuna 6Vaulks 33Hoilett 8Ralls 19Mendez-Laing 13Paterson Substitutes 1Etheridge 5Flint 9Glatzel 11Murphy 17Tomlin 22Bamba 23Ward 24B Smith Getting concerned by the miles being put on the back 4s legs. Disappointed that we havent started with Bobby or Ward.
Mitrovic bought that penalty, like Bamford at Leeds. Harsh Still in it - just - thanks to Smithies and Reid missing a sitter. Harris surely needs to be quicker with bringing in subs now
Need someone to hold the ball up front. Glatzel is the obvious choice. Him, Tomlin and Ward on asap. Hoilett is anonymous - Murphy could be a wild card choice to cause them the problems that Hoilett isn't.
Very average players dominate this city side. Don’t think Ralls is ever going to fulfil his potential TBH!
May be a blessing in disguise now we probably have to win all 3 games so Harris will have to play offensive football. I just cannot suffer Paterson, in particular and Murphy much longer Did anyone hear Prutton genuinely liken Paterson to Mitrovic pre game; Gabbidon couldn’t conceal his laughter.
Got to say, Fulham deserved the win but by God they were assisted by some inept officials. Won't dispute Fulham's penalty for the opener, but Mitrovic certainly made sure he got the decision. Then we get Danny Ward with a note too dissimilar circumstance gets nowt. The one guy on their side (forgotten his name already) could have been sent off twice in this game alone. What I did take as a positive is that despite our lack of quality tonight, we kept battling and kept probing/asking questions of them. If we'd spent around £120 million like Fulham in the last couple of years we may have stood a marginally better chance. At least we know we're relatively stable financially. Think if Fulham fail to get promoted in the next few years they'll be fecked....
This is really annoyed me. The other thing that we should be banned from doing is long throws into the box. Our conversation rate of lumping it into the box to goals must be close to zero
Yes I reckon Morrison got his head first to just 2 all game. The defenders are expecting a long throw which comes in at a slow looping trajectory and is easy to defend whereas once he chucked it flat and hard Morrison got a head to it. But why when he’s got no one near him doesn’t he throw it to eg Bennett who can cross it in with more chance of reaping benefit. Oh yes the ref was inconsistent all night. Fulham lucky to finish with 11 and should have given us a pen and also them another for handball. Overall the chasm between us and top 4 is so wide. Getting 6th may result in a play off lottery but we’d then have to have 3 really good days to the opponents 3 bad ones.
We were second best all over the pitch. Willing in endeavour but weak in class and some of that "interplay" was embarrassing. What on earth was Paterson doing on the pitch? He ran around a lot but he was hopeless. He hardly got near the ball and when he did it bounced off him. NML will have a go but he can't pass a ball to team mate to save his life and his replacement Murphy is an absolute waste of space. He looks disinterested to me and wants away. You can run through all the players and not find one (apart from Smithies) to thank for that performance - maybe the best outfield player was Vaulks but that was only because the rest were so poor. Fulham are good footballing side, but not that good that they can't be got at and caused problems - we didn't. The long throws have become the only way we can get the ball in the box - we certainly can't pass it in there. Major rethink needed wherever we finish this term because what we have is not good enough for this division, and an absolute joke if we managed to get up.