The Soccer Blog: Fulham)

Showing posts with label Fulham). Show all posts

Saturday, 9 April 2011

A fine win against our bogey team (vs Fulham)

By: Shaun | April 9th, 2011
Tweet

berba hug Considering our recent history against Fulham, this was a thoroughly encouraging and enjoyable display from the men in red.

Impressions:

1.First goal was a delight to watch although it was tarnished by a hint of offside. Nevertheless, Nani’s trickery and movement followed by Ando’s touchback to him and Berba’s finish summed up what United are capable of at their best.

2.Nani must have been itching to get out there today (after being left on the bench against Chelsea) and had his way down the left. At times, he frustrated Berba with his reluctance to release the pass earlier, but overall, he was in storming form. His touch to get past Schwarzer and composure to not shoot immediately after was commendable. SOCCER-ENGLAND/

3.Valencia creates a buzz every time he receives the ball because there is nothing superfluous about his touch or movement. His nature of play is to be incredibly direct whenever possible and he got the better of Calcido today down the right. His goal, while all down to Nani, was well deserved considering his injury plagued season and his return to form almost immediately after coming back into the team. It’s good to see him back and in fine form for squeaky bum time.

4.Playing one up front worked well today since our attack flowed so predominantly down our flanks. The issue with Berba as a lone forward has always been his tendency to drop too deep to receive the ball at his feet effectively giving us a more packed midfield, but without a target man further forward to keep the defense honest. With Nani and Valencia in such a rampant mood today, we were able to attack down the flanks repeatedly and reduce our need to run all our attacks through Berba.

5.Games like today will hopefully convince Scholes to come back next season. With Gibson and Ando (especially) providing him protection and muscle in midfield, he was free to move the ball around at will. If we can upgrade in the offseason with even more bite in the middle of the park, he would be free to contribute with what he does best without having to worry too much about having to cleanup in front of the back four.

6.It was weird to see Ando as the farthest forward of our midfielders at various points in the game since his composure and passing in the final third aren’t exactly top class. Considering some of the space in which he found himself today, you wonder what someone of Sneijder or Ozil’s quality/creativity could have conjured up. Ando is more the battering ram that puts his head down and runs through the crowd to create chances.

7.One of the biggest positive from today’s game was that we finished the 90 without picking up any injuries. That’s a big plus in light of our love affair with the treatment table recently.

berba evra 8.Evra didn’t grab any headlines today, but his overall defending, movement and distribution were outstanding. It’s taken a long time, but the debacle in South Africa looks to finally be off his shoulders and mind.

In other news, Chelsea won today thus keeping themselves in the hunt. We’re now 10 points clear of Arsenal although you feel like they will cut that back down to 7 after their game tomorrow against Blackpool.

Ultimately, we know that winning our remaining league fixtures will see the title return to OT regardless of how the other 2 teams perform. Squeaky bum time indeed.

Some Related Man United Posts:The Berba Show pt 2 (feat Blackburn)Supersub Berba (vs Bolton)Welcome back Nani (vs Stoke)Still undefeated (vs Arsenal)Not again?!?! (v West Brom)

Category: English Premier League, Manchester United, Match Reports, Nani

Tags: Anderson, Antonio Valencia, Berbatov, English Premier League, Manchester United, Match Reports, Nani, Old Trafford, Paul Scholes
Tweet « Tony & the Twins Triumph | Home | blog comments powered by Disqus

Harry Redknapp, England manager? (Awful writing) Is It Too Early to Get Excited About Sturridge? Denmark 1 - 2 England (Via Hamlet) more news...

Search The Offside

Sunday, 19 September 2010

Out of the frying pan and into the fire (Blackburn 1-1 Fulham)

By: timmyg | September 18th, 2010

CachedImage.axd For all the talk of Wolves being “dirty” this past week, today we saw what a actual dirty team looks like. But I’m not going to dwell on that, as it’s Blackburn and a Sam Allardyce-led club so what’s the point rehashing the obvious?

After El Hadj Diouf played Mark Scwarzer, and not the ball, Blackburn were 1-0 up when the long-ball from Paul Robinson managed to find Christopher Samba’s noggin. Thankfully Clint Dempsey connected on a cross from Carlos Salcido (who was great on his debut) and NAFTA’d it into the net to equalize. Both teams deserved a point and that is exactly what both got.

For me today’s biggest story is not Mark Schwarzer’s many mental lapses (Speaking of, I’m just going to go blame it on Blackburn’s targeted strategy. I’m not going to into denial that the transfer saga to Arsenal may have affected his psyche nor worry that Stockdale is out for a month and out backup is currently NEIL ETHERIDGE. Nope, no denial or worry here!)

Today we saw whatever specter of Roy remaining officially leave the building. I don’t mean to use that word with any negative connotations, but today would have been a match where Fulham would have sat back and predictably snoozed our way to a draw, if that. Lest we forget that Roy’s Fulham lost to a Blackburn led by Paul Ince two years ago.

Fulham were zipping the ball around and even dominated possession. I could have sworn we outshot them, but am wrong; it sure felt like we did though. The true proof of Hughes’ regime is in the substitute pudding though. Just consider today’s substitutions: Clint Dempsey for Eddie Johnson, and Danny Murphy for Zoltan Gera(!!!).

Again, not trying to knock Gera but that particular substitution is something Roy would have never, ever done — especially with a fit Greening on the bench. He probably would have taken out Dempsey for Gera or Baird and Murphy for Baird or Greening. Or not done anything at all considering last year Kallio replaced Konchesky and Nevland replaced Gera only because both Paul and Clint got injured. The year before that Roy didn’t make a single substitution.

Right about now I was going to post Blackburn’s passing chalkboard, and talk about how well our defense played, but the editors deemed it too offensive and obscene to the sport. So, go to the Guardian site, plug in the data, and see for yourselves (NSFW).

Have the chart up yet? Good. Thank God we didn’t lose today.

Finally, Eddie Johnson has now seen Ewood Park twice is his Fulham career. Considering he has twelve total appearances for the club, that’s a pretty good number. But remember what happened the last time he was at Ewood Park? He drew a foul in the dying moments and Jimmy Bullard equalized at the last moment. Although that scenario didn’t happen again this time, he did do it last week.

szólj hozzá: Blackburn-Fulham 1-1

Category: Team News, match report

Tags: match report, Team News
« On Henry’s “unnecessary” tackle | Home | Subscribe

The Offside RSS Feeds

Share.wp-notable img {border: none;margin-left:5px;} digg:

Comments | Add your comment xiuli | September 19th, 2010 at 4:18 am

I like this site very much

===== http://www.shoptrade.us ====

jordan air max oakland raiders $34–39;

Ed Hardy AF JUICY POLO Bikini $25;

Christan Audigier BIKINI JACKET $25;

gstar coogi evisu true jeans $35;

coach chanel gucci LV handbags $36;

coogi DG edhardy gucci t-shirts $18;

CA edhardy vests.paul smith shoes $32;

jordan dunk af1 max gucci shoes $37;

EDhardy gucci ny New Era cap $16;

coach okely Adidas CHANEL DG Sunglass $18;

===== http://www.shoptrade.us ====

Leave a ReplyIf you have not commented here before, please take a moment to peruse our
Commenting Guidelines.

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Already candidates for succeeding Capello are stepping forward Fabio Capello WILL Step down after Euro 2012 Two games, Two wins. Where from here? more news...

Search The Offside

Pages

Saturday, 9 April 2011

A fine win against our bogey team (vs Fulham)

Sunday, 19 September 2010

Out of the frying pan and into the fire (Blackburn 1-1 Fulham)