Diomansy Kamara: Man of Mystery

The riddle of Diomansy Kamara continues to convolute. Against Blackburn on Sunday he spawned perhaps his most infuriating performance so far.

He has had adequate time to “acclimatise”, to “gel”, and to “find his feet”. What he has failed to thus far, is “click.” At Sunday’s game there was a conspicuous sense of patience running out amongst the Fulham supporters.

He does not appear to be a player lacking in confidence. However, each time he receives the ball, he contrives to charge forward like a lobotomised clockwork toy, suggesting action before thought. He continues on, attempting to introduce himself to as many of the opposing team as possible (the Fulham players on these occasions becoming mysteriously transparent), until he collides with a defender and is brought to his knees. Cue wounded looks in the direction of the referee.

It’s true that on Sunday he covered a lot of ground, at speed, as he chased back when the Fulham attacks broke down: it was endearing, and encouraging to witness. In truth, however, it delivered little reward, and still does not absolve him of his primary responsibility: performing an effective striking role.

Yielding possession by way of a few one-touch return passes to his team-mates would not only render attacks more effective, but would signal a greater sense of integration with his colleagues: something that appears lacking at present. Selfishness in a striker can be a worthy trait when the goal is in sight, but not when he is 50 yards out.

This may seem a rather damning view of a man who scored a goal and earned a penalty, and Sanchez may consider those contributions a good return on 83 minutes of football. However, my disquiet arises not from the disparity between his price and his goals, as it appears to with many, but that between his quite overt ability and his performances.

Perhaps his post-scoring “loco” gesture is more apt than we imagine, but instead of his previous employers, it’s his own psychological mechanisms that require a little tinkering?

Fulham 2 Blackburn 2

Recently, Fulham have become somewhat notorious for their custom of conceding goals in the last 10 minutes of matches, together with the fact that their half-time scores alone would place them at the top of the Premier League table. The more generous observers attending this game at Craven Cottage might therefore deem congratulations in order, as Lawrie Sanchez’s team successfully avoided adding any more statistical weight to this phenomenon.

The more pragmatic bystanders, however, would no doubt counter that conceding an equalising goal in the 79th minute does not represent a huge progression beyond this sobering record. They would also allude to the continuing fragility of their play, their flimsy midfield, and the enduring enigma that is Diomansy Kamara.

Fulham received an early bonus at the outset of this game: after 3 minutes, Blackburn’s leading goal-scorer and major goal threat, Benni McCarthy, was taken off following a weighty challenge from the imposing Dejan Stefanovic. Santa Cruz had been omitted, leaving the oncoming Jason Roberts as their sole striker.

Fulham appeared eager to exploit this, and embarked upon a spell of neat passing and swiftly executed counter-attacks. Bouazza looked aggressively direct, but still squandered the final ball too often. The occasional glance around would help this.

A magnificent through-ball from Dempsey released Kamara from the traps: a one-on-one should have been academic, but instead of continuing on past Keller, or shooting early, he chose to dither and check, and the chance was gone. It was first of many exasperating moments provided by the striker.

Blackburn, demonstrating that they are continuing to trade-in their previous, overtly physical, approach for informed tactics and fluent passing, looked equally potent.

Indeed, after 20 minutes, they began to eclipse Fulham’s efforts, increasingly by-passing the rather meek and accommodating partnership of Davis and Murphy with clinical passes in to the forward players, repeatedly rendering the entire Fulham midfield redundant.

Steven Davis is a player whose busyness suggests influence. A notion sadly subverted by his repeatedly incomplete passes, unforced errors, and the ease with which he was excised time after time by a neat Blackburn pass. Murphy offered little more.

On a few occasions, a Blackburn player ran from the half-way line to the Fulham box unchallenged. Cue bemused faces as the culprit was sought: an inquest never settled.

It is displays such as these make the popular Alexei Smertin’s continued excommunication a prevailing mystery.

Alarmingly, this failing continued to be exploited throughout the game. The only noticeable response was the late, central deployment of Simon Davies, toiling away in an attempt to shield the aforementioned two.

0-0 was an apt caption for an engaging but inert display at half-time.

Dempsey was an encouraging mixture of insight and industry throughout, and it was the Texan that forced the breakthrough, 5 minutes after the re-start. Chasing a lost cause by the left by-line, he fought for and gained possession, then squared a ball into the area. Kamara was brought down by Nelsen for a penalty that Murphy dispatched with poise.

Increasingly, Fulham floundered, performing the odd vignette of ball-scrambling panic in front of the thankfully restored Niemi.

As well as the central area, Blackburn had been finding space down Fulham’s left flank all game. This pattern, and Fulham’s escalating vulnerability provided the inevitable equaliser as Emerton fired in from a Warnock cross headed on by the offside Jason Roberts.

Nevertheless, this period gave rise to the best move of the game: a series of sharp interchanges lead to a Simon Davies cross/shot hybrid across the goalmouth that was met by Kamara, apparently offside, racing in at the far post.

The failure to address the weakness on the left was Fulham’s undoing once more, as Warnock slipped in unseen by Dempsey, to meet a cross from the right with an easy tap-in.

Sanchez will take encouragement from drawing with a team that he reiterated his admiration for after the game. However, as with the Reading game, the result belies the evidence. Although Blackburn are a few years further into their rebuilding than Fulham, they still constitute a far more robust outfit and, despite their image, conjure more guile than Fulham are able to at present.

Niemi 8, Baird 6, Hughes 6, Stefanovic 8, Konchesky 7, Davies 6, Davis 4, Murphy 5, Bouazza 6, Kamara 4, Dempsey 8.

Substitutions: Kuqi for Bouazza; Seol & Healy for Kamara & Murphy.

Clint Dempsey Feature

Today's edition of The Guardian carries a candid and rather moving feature on Clint Dempsey.

It can be found here.

Please take a look.

Can Sanchez Surpass His Benchmarks?

When Lawrie Sanchez first joined Fulham, he suggested that Reading and Blackburn were potential role models for his team. Mindful of the resources he had at hand, this seemed a sensible and logical approach. Both of these teams had achieved decent finishes (Reading 8th, in their first post-promotion season; Blackburn 10th), despite having limited funding and an absence of “name” players. As such, they presented realistic examples of what Fulham could perhaps achieve.

The subtext of this admission appeared to be that he aimed to extract more from the squad than the sum of their abilities, by virtue of creating a well-practiced, well-organised team with a sturdy work ethic – much as he did with his Northern Irish charges. This would be allied with an astute and well-researched tactical approach. The latter certainly brought swift rewards via David Healy’s 1st minute goal in the opening game against Arsenal, the striker having been instructed to close down Jens Lehman at every opportunity.

However, this thumbnail sketch also makes them sound like they should be a facsimile of Chris Coleman’s outfit. Whilst they certainly display some of his team’s fallibilities, and a tendency to revert to type in times of panic (i.e. long-ball bingo), there has been an improvement, at times, in the standard of passing and movement. The considerable financial investment has, of course, been noted.

It has transpired that these two teams visit Craven Cottage in successive matches. Reading were beaten 3-1 in a game that openly subverted the Sky-spawned fanfare that promotes the Premiership as being “the best league in the world.” It’s fair to say that the oppressing blanket of tension (and it’s ultimate release in the 90th minute), generated by the notion of a manager on the precipice, was the game’s most engaging aspect. So, although Sanchez triumphed over one of the teams that he’s been aspiring to emulate, the quality of the victory begets reservations.

If Reading’s performance that day was typical, and their results so far suggest that it was, the transformation is a mystery. Their showing against Fulham at the Madejski Stadium last April exemplified their whole season: quick, accurate passing; feeding the wings to initiate attacks; repeatedly placing dangerous balls across the face of the Fulham goal – one of which lead to them scoring. This season they appear to have morphed into a lumpen, long-ball chasing beast of a team, devoid of their prior finesse and craft, despite being a largely unchanged side. Perplexing.

This Sunday it’s Blackburn. Last season, following the respective home games, I remember bracketing Rovers and Bolton together in my mind. I formed an impression of them both as being crude, bruising, cynically physical teams, doing as much to win by virtue of non-football methods as they were with football ones: borderline challenges, time-wasting, endless official-baiting etc.

In hindsight, this assessment of Blackburn, based admittedly on the one game, appears as unreliable as logic might suggest it would be: they cannot have attained their 10th position, and this season’s clear progression, by virtue of these ingredients alone. It is now apparent that they have acquired an image that is unrepresentative and unfair, and one they are struggling to cast off. If my lazy pigeonholing of last season is typical, this is hardly surprising.

With Sunday in mind, I keep finding myself looking over my shoulder back to the Portsmouth game, and the uncomfortable memory of how we struggled to deal them in the second half. I’m anticipating a similarly testing encounter. Even if it does turn out to be another unduly physical game, I wonder how many of our supporters would welcome the prospect of Fulham emulating Blackburn at the moment, whatever their approach?

Come Sunday evening we’ll know if Lawrie’s managed to equal the second of his role models.