How disappointing was that !

Crisis? I am reading this correctly? Yeah today was disappointing considering the 10 men and our christmas period, and I am disappointed that we haven't been able to get any real consistency going this season but to call it a crisis when we're 6 points clear of the bottom 3 and 2 off 10th place is madness. Haven't seen the game so can't comment on tactics, but a crisis is certainly not the case.

 

Not a crisis, but yes - FRUSTRATING....
11 vs 10, we had 59% possession including 9 corners to zero, against a team in trouble. Allowing them to score BOTH immediately before and after half-time is just sloppy. I've yet to see the disallowed Dempsey goal, but that's no excuse for another dismal performance. FFC4L is spot on about Dembele being critical to balancing Ruiz, Dempsey, Duff and Zamora; and it did seem odd for MJ not to bring on Sidwell.

I'm pleased to see that Damian Duff scored again, especially given Newcastle are up next - remember last time!

C O Y W

 

The disallowed Dempsey goal is no excuse as the referee could have easily given only a yellow for Yakubu's foul on Murphy. We should have won this game with an extra man. No excuses.

 

Just saw MOTD - Even Gary Lineker commented about this match being on 3rd.

Not much point in commenting further about losing a match we shouldn't. Apart from the fact that Stockdale and the defensive wall will be putting in some practice this week!

C O Y W

 

In the post match interview Jols interview was totally lackluster.
at one point he said, we are not scoring enough goals obvious. " Well you pick the bloody team".
I know many will say we have had some good results,and now we have an easy run in,
but the results we have had against the lower teams i don`t think so.

 

It certainly is alarming that we don't seem to be picking up points against the teams that we should be (Blackburn, Wolves, Stoke, Villa, Swansea) whereas we've picked up unexpected points against the top teams (Chelsea, Arsenal, City, Liverpool).

 

Dempsey's goal could have stand but hey. Football has a strong element of luck. Two headers one against the post and the other saved could have won it but went on the other side. First goal was Stocky's mistake. In any case a combination of poor tactical performance by Jol and luck resulted to the defeat. Let's move on.

 

What I don't get is about Dempsey's disallowed goal for off-side,
is that after Kasami had his goal disallowed against WBA, was that
it was asked for it to be cleared up and the Refs came out and said that
the advantage should now be given to the attacker when there is no clear daylight
between attacker and defender (like it was for the 3rd Blackburn goal),
and that the body of the attacker is not off-side
when his feet are level with the defender.

But this still doesn't change the pathetic defending for all the goals.

 

Ill tell you now, we didn't deserve to win this game. Very frustrating, Blackburn follwed passion and a will to win, a huge number of our players couldn't give a toss. Once again only AJ clapped the poor travelling fans at the end. Jol once again had a poor game- taking Riise off (not injured) and putting duff at LEft Back was one of the bizzare, he was by far our best player

 

Good point Gera. We've all been banging on about the number of goals conceded in the last 10 minutes, but yesterday's duo made the total 11 within 5 mimutes of either side of half time. Concentration? Thoughts of/result of half time dressing room talk?

Again the thing I don't understand is why Jol and the backroom lot don't seem to look at pattterns and do something about it.

 

Some of the above postings say we had 11 against 10.
I thought we played with 10 men every game,as this season "we haven`t had a centre foward have we "

 

Don't even get me started!

 

I thought Fulham were unlucky. The boys played pretty well, controlling the game and creating chances, but some poor decisions from the ref and Stockdale put us behind. These things happen ... on another day we could have won it.

 

Decisions evened out DR. Yakubu's red card for Dempsey's disallowed goal. No excuses.

 

We played like we had a 2 men missing. Because Danny was outnumbered 3 to 1 in the middle. Put simply, Jol isn't good at tactics.

 

Disappointed is still how I see yesterdays result/performance, certainly not a crisis. I think we were all on a high after a good run over Christmas and so I think we all thought at least a draw was achievable against Blackburn.

Looking at the stats we had 60% of the posession and had some key decisions go against us. As Bandit says though they perhaps even themselves out, if not during the game but over a season.

Goals are what we are seriously lacking. We make such hard work of it. We desperately need an inform striker that can convert all our hard work in the game.

Pleasing to see Mark, half job, Hughes has not got off to a good start today !

 

Thought the most telling thing were the stats at the end of MOTD. We had 53% of the possession as you would expect against 10 men, we had 9 corners to Blackburn's 0 again as you would expect, but they still managed to score 3 to our 1 - and in commentary after their third the guy said Goodness knows how considering they only have 10 men but Blackburn managed to have a man over on the break. Exactly! How did they manage that? What on earth were we doing? You can't tell from the highlights but would love to know from someone who was there.

 

I watched the game and to be honest in the second half we didn't even look like scoring, if anyone was going to score the fourth goal it was going to be Blackburn. I can't help feeling however that Schwarzer would have done better with not only the free kick but the other two as well. There was absolutely no balance in the midfield, we were playing with six attacking players, the result was obvious to be honest once you saw the line up. No Sidwell, no Etuhu, no Baird gave us no defensive cover, which we so desperately need as Murphy has a tendancy to give the ball away quite a bit these days.

 

I hadn't heard that clarification of the offside rule, SuperBrian. My understanding was the forwardmost part of the body that can legally play the ball (eg, not arm/hand, but everything else) is the part that counts. If that is the case, then Dempsey was offside, as his torso was further forward than the backmost part of the defender. It was a close call, but to my eye (and to my understanding of the rule, which may be wrong if I missed something earlier in the season), it was a right one.

 

As the rules stand, it was clearly, but only just, offside. Really tough on Clint, but so was the save from Sendros, BZ onto the woodwork. The "glass-half-full" side of me says we could have been 2-0 up in the first half and out of sight. However, we've all agreed that MJ has a lot to work on, including the sloppy defending.

To quote from the Sixties: "It's a funny ol' game". Liverpool's set-up for Stoke could have easily meant a home defeat, Spurs are p'd off at drawing to Blackburn, Arsenal can't move forward under Wenger, while Villa/Everton/Sunderland/WestBrom and ourselves are all looking at the gap to the bottom 5, who themselves are worried about escaping. So we are not gonna be in the worst 3.

C O Y W