New Statue for Fulham
In a week when Jimmy Savile has been exposed as something a
bit nastier than a Gold Pair of running shorts, it’s ironic that we have Fulham
as our visitors to St.Mary’s. Fulham’s
Craven Cottage Ground, of course contains a statue of Michael Jackson (who
never played for Fulham to my knowledge).
This statue is the worst statue at any football ground anywhere in the
world and has been since the Original Ted Bates/Jimmy Krankie statue got taken down. However, a trip to see the Jacko statue is for another day.
Today there are the three generations attending the game
with my Dad and my 8 year old son making the trip. Dad’s not feeling well and can’t face the
usual walk over the Itchen
Bridge Eastleigh and
District Mini Soccer fixture and so, no spaces forcing me drop the elder and
younger off at the ground and then to actually pay for parking which I never
do, on principle. Never had this problem
in League 1 did we?
To the team news and a Saturday night Twitter rumour proved
to be true as Gaston Ramirez was injured, as was Nathaniel Clyne meaning
recalls for Jason Puncheon and Danny Fox.
On the positive side of injury news, Morgan Schneiderlin is back to take
the place of James Ward-Prowse. Fulham
have Berbatov missing which has to be good news and have Chris Baird in
midfield who was our Player of the Year in 2006/07 when we lost in the Championship
Playoffs which we reached despite Whiskey George being the manager. Our referee today is Mark Clattenburg who
I’ve always thought was awful.
To cut a long story short, as the game kicked off I was
outside the ground waiting to meet someone with a spare ticket (or rather a credit
card style entry device card thingy). We
were impatiently waiting outside different burger outlets and following a
couple of ‘where the fuck are you?’ phone calls, we got into our seats as we
won a corner. Adam swung it over and
Jose Fonte got to it on the near post and flicked a header (with a large hint
of shoulder), back over everyone and dropping in the far corner of the
net. Great start, come on!!!
From the first Fulham attack down our right, the Eastern
European with the unpronounceable name went past Frazer who seemed to pull out
of the tackle before collapsing in a heap.
It looked a worrying one and sure enough, off he went on a stretcher
with Big Jos coming on and MayaYoshida being forced to play at right back.
Saints are moving the ball through midfield well with Baird
and Sidwell struggling to cope with the movement of Davis, Lallana and Punch in
particular. Sidwell is a horrible player
– a younger Ginger version of anti-footballer Michael Brown who just runs
around kicking people with no discernable footballing ability at all. He goes in studs up on J-Rod and it’s a
yellow card all day long but not in the eyes of Twattenburg who waves play
on. I know you should always play to the
whistle and all that but it’s so obvious a foul that every Saints player has
stopped as Fulham come away with the ball.
All the football is coming from the boys in red and Fulham
are torn apart again like one of Michael Jackson’s (alleged) victims. It’s a superb move with Lallana feeding J-Rod
on the left who got his head up and played a superb ball into the onrushing Sir
Rickie who tried to be too clever and sidefooted wide instead of leathering the
shite out of it.
Fulham can’t handle us at all from set pieces as the next
Lallana delivery misses all the big guys and hits Punch on the shin at the back
post and hits a combination of post and a defender before bouncing away to
safety. It seems for a second that we’ve
made it 2-0 from another corner as Foxy swings one over from the other side and
Punch slams it into the net as Schwarzer lays on the ground. Twattenburg gives a free kick to the
goalkeeper which looked incredibly generous and just plain wrong on first
viewing but when you see the replay, you realise it’s actually a correct
decision as Punch has flicked out a leg and brought him down though it has to
be asked whether it’s enough to bring down a 6 foot 4 goalkeeper. Twattenburg is nothing if not inconsistent
though and he produces a yellow card for Big Jos as a ball is flicked onto his
hand from point blank range. So...
that’s a booking whereas a studs up tackle which leaves a player needing
treatment is not.
In our last chance to make to 2-0 before half time, Lallana
feeds Punch who plays Sir Rickie in on the left but his near post left footed
blast hits Schwarzer and rebounds out. Fulham
eventually clear the danger in classic style as Davis breathes on Damien Duff, causing him to
dive on the floor to win a free kick to save him the bother of clearing the
ball. Twattenburg unsurprisingly falls
for it.
It’s half time and 1-0 and you can’t help but feel that it
should have been about 4-0 and game over. Fulham were, quite frankly, shite and
had offered nothing at all going forward.
They wouldn’t be as bad in the 2nd half and we could really
have done with Ramirez today who would have I’m sure, turned the possession
into a couple more goals.
The second half starts and it’s noticeable that Maya has
defended ok from right back but he really doesn’t want to get involved in the
attacking side of things. Steven Davis and Morgan, superb in the first half
appear to have taken a step back towards our own goal and Lallana and Punch
seem to be trying too hard to make things happen and keep losing the ball. Regardless of playing worse, we still create
chances and Morgan’s cross was met by Sir Rickie who tried this time to break
the net but instead, volleyed over the bar at 200mph and killed someone in the
Chapel Stand.
Fulham are getting closer to our goal without really
threatening but this all changes as Lallana pressurises Duff on the wing and
Duff’s legs give way again and he falls on the ground. Not even Superman with his X-Ray vision could
see a fucking foul there but Twattenberg does.
The free kick is swung over and there’s a horrible moment when it looks
like Sidwell is actually going to score but it kind of bounces off him and hits
the post before bouncing out. 5 seconds
of carnage and Keystone Cops style defending follow and the ball hits Yoshida
on the hand and we are at last grateful to Twatts foer not giving it. It’s all Fulham now and we’re getting deeper
and deeper as Rodallega gets his head to a cross from the Fulham right and
Gazza does brilliantly to claw it out.
Nigel can see it going wrong and probably thinks that Maya
is struggling at right back. He had a
decent first half but seems to be struggling now and so Punch is replaced with
Bald Psycho which should make us a bit more solid on our right, the downside is
that Chappers won’t offer as much going forward. Jol replaces Sidwell with a footballer in Kieran
Richardson and I notice that we are making our 3rd and final sub with
Mayuka coming on for J-Rod to add some pace up front... oh no it’s not... Sir
Rickie is off to be replaced by the Homesick Drink Driving Man.
The last time we took Sir Rickie off in a home game, we were 2-1 up and
duly lost. It’s looking like Groundhog
day once more as Riise has an age to fire in a shot from the left which is
going wide and Gazza is letting it go until Big Jos steams in and with clinical
finishing, slams it into the top corner of the net. Fuck it!!!... great finish though! At this point, I got told off by an 8 year
old for swearing.
Fulham are in the ascendancy now and look like the only team
who are going to win it. Sir Rickie’s
withdrawal has left J-Rod running around up front but he’s not getting hold of
ball from the stream of hoofed passes heading his way. Greek international Karagounis is on and his
first contribution is to have a dive, lie on the ground holding his head, stop
the game and get treated and then spring back to his feet afterwards. Wanker. Hangeland then booms the ball forward behind
Fox to Reither whose cross along the ground it met by Kieran Richardson whose
shot is covered by Gazza but it flicks off of Big Jos who really should know
better by now and ends up going the other way to make it 2-1 with a minute of
normal time to go prompting a mass exodus of our fair weather 8000 who are only
here for the good stuff.
It’s brilliant when the people who storm out early miss the
good stuff. Firstly, Twattenburg does us
a favour by not pulling up Maya for a ropey tackle on Richardson who then seems
to lose his rag as a result and take out Morgan. Foxy swings in the free kick and the
Portuguese Man of War get sup and flicks another header past Schwarzer and into
the net. Off comes the shirt, out comes
Twattenberg’s cards and notebook again and the celebrating Fulham fans have
suddenly gone quiet. I’d keep quiet all
the time if I had a statue of Michael Jackson at my own ground. We have a bit of a go in the injury time that
remains with Guly to the fore and win a couple more corners but we can’t force
Schwarzer into serious action again and so from a game we should have won and
could easily have lost – we get a draw which has taken us out of the relegation
zone. Hurrah for small mercies.
In Nigel’s post match interview he sounded somewhat
deflated, mainly at our second half performance which he quite rightly said
wasn’t good enough. It seemed to me
though that Fulham upped a gear and we instantly went on the retreat with the
midfield dropping deeper and deeper.
It’s strange that we’re an attacking side and it’s only when we try and
tighten things up that things go wrong.
We took off Puncheon for the more defensively minded Chaplow and this
meant Riise could go forward more and he set up a goal. We look Sir Rickie off against Man United
when were were 2-1 and immediately let in 2 goals which is what also happened
today. I accept that he was knackered
and not being very effective in the ‘10’ position so why not take J-Rod off and
put Sir Rickie up in his normal position.
We’re not as good as a team when he’s not on the pitch which has been
the case since September 2009 when he arrived.
There were some positives today with Fonte being decent in his primary
role as a defender and a mention too for Danny Fox who did well today, helped
by being up against a left footed right winger who always wanted to cut back in
to where Foxy naturally seems to position himself.
Martin Jol’s interview was interesting because the second
half of it needed subtitles. He was
understandable at first when moaning about Twattenburg regardingYoshida’s
tackle in the build up to the 2nd goal but then went into the
deepest voice ever with a Dutch accent.
During the unintelligible bit he was obviously talking about the goal we
had disallowed and Duff’s diving about and Sidwell’s tackling or maybe he was
divulging details of the proposed Jimmy Savile and Gary Glitter statues to go
with the one they already have. Back to
Twattenburg though, he was absolutely dreadful today and in the main, we got
the worst of it.
Now, I don’t like Mark Lawrenson and I struggle with him being called a ‘Football Expert’ because he
quite obviously, is a plonker. However,
he did point out on Match of the Day that our defensive problems are down to
concentration and not down to defensive set-up or anything like that. He’s right in the main – today, Jos had a
shocker for the first goal and no one tracked Richardson for the second. Nigel also seemed to be pissed off with the standard
‘we need to learn’, changing to ‘we need to learn quicker’. I wonder if we still draw a blue line under
it or have we resorted to teacup throwing yet?
Next up is another international break which we will
hopefully use to get Nathaniel Clyne and The Great Gaston fit again and Spurs
with hopefully use it to get injuries to Bale, Lennon, Defoe, Dembele, Dempsey, Walker, Vertonghen and anyone else they have who is decent as we’ve got them next at
SMS. Hmmmm.. lets see it as the game
that could kick start our season! Perhaps.
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