Following a heartening aggregate victory over Wolfsburg in the Europa League, the lupine theme continued with the visit of Wolverhampton Wanderers, two cities that are, unfortunately, not twinned with each other. A missed opportunity by the respective city’s elders, I fear.
The heat of the sun, and a common triumphing over relegation, engendered a suffocating ambience, with both teams slow to anger throughout. In fact, the players demonstrated as much desire to wrestle with fate as the inflatable lamb being tossed around amongst the boisterous Wolves supporters.
With the visitors mimicking Fulham’s typically obdurate away displays, together the two teams conspired to choke any panache out of the game. Despite the impending stalemate, Zoltan Gera’s renaissance continued with an edgy, probing display. Indeed, it was only his effort and creativity that threatened to rupture the indifference gripping the Fulham players.
In the second-half, Damien Duff was granted a golden opportunity to purloin a few more points and make the overhauling of Birmingham City in the league table considerably more achievable. However, when released on goal by Gera he showed a disappointing lack of faith in his right foot, his - now almost trademark - switch to his left allowing Elokobi to intervene. Similarly, Bobby Zamora, on the rare occasion that he escaped from Craddock’s claustrophobic embraces, crafted a fine shot on the turn from 18 yards that glanced from the post.
But this was a training game in all but name. A nonchalant scuffle, and no more. As the second-half proceeded in slow motion, calls for substitutions to inject a little vim increased but, oddly, Hodgson resisted to the end. Although not one to wilfully exploit his bench, it was a curious decision. Despite the lack of urgency, this was an attritional, energy-sapping outing, with an incredibly significant Europa League semi-final against Hamburg approaching. Even if additional Premier League points were deemed dispensable, the logic of withdrawing a few players in preparation for that game would have appeared inarguable. One can only assume that maximising the together-time of the players set to play was considered a greater priority.
Volcanic ash notwithstanding, one hopes that the atmosphere this Thursday is a touch more volatile, and the expansion of lungs considerably more enthused.
Showing posts with label Comment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Comment. Show all posts
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Defensive Zen: Liverpool 0 Fulham 0
It is evident that Liverpool’s squad is superior to Fulham’s, in both ability and market value. No debate is required on this. However, at Anfield they were resolutely equal on goals scored, and points taken.
Statistically speaking, Liverpool dominated this game. They had 65% of the possession, compared to Fulham’s 35%, and a similar territorial dominance of 66% to 34%. They had 17 shots and 10 corners while the visitors achieved only 1 of each. And so on.
It appears, then, that Fulham “parked the bus”. At least one match report has reiterated Mourinho's famous gripe, and it still carries all the disapproval it did when the then-Chelsea manager coined it.
Liverpool can at least console themselves with this numerical superiority, then, and talk, as they have done, of “deserving” to win. But did they? Should they be able to claim a moral victory here?
Consider this: whose game plan prevailed, Roy’s or Rafa’s? Which manager optimised their resources, deploying their squad most effectively in view of the aforementioned imbalance between the teams?
Open, aesthetically-attractive football remains the holy grail for all teams and their supporters, but there should be no shame here, and there will be no apologies.
Let’s be clear, this wasn’t a 90-minute circus of defensive confusion, with players flailing around like human flak trying to deflect enemy missiles. This was a disciplined, syncopated display. Fulham’s midfield and back fours were lined up like ranks of soldiers, each player engaging when required, before resuming their position, exactly as drilled.
This was a team committed to their manager’s philosophy, and dedicated to faithfully executing his astute tactics.
In fact, I saw a nobility in the defending, an admirable stoicism. There were periods when watching them repel an attack, only to stand their ground and invite another one forward, became almost hypnotic. Dare I say it, there was poetry in their industry. It was defensive zen.
Thorough my biased prism I even felt they were almost, at times, taking a perverse pleasure in it all, encouraging the opposition to do their worst. Go on, punch me there…I felt nowt!
Strangely, it even brought to mind the 1974 Heavyweight Championship fight in Zaire, Muhammad Ali and George Foreman’s notorious “Rumble in the Jungle”, with Fulham mirroring Ali’s “rope-a-dope” tactics. Early on, the challenger had deliberately backed himself onto the ropes, inviting pressure from hard-hitting World Champion Foreman. Ali had identified his opponent’s strengths and set out to negate them - why try to compete on his terms? In fact, if Fulham’s single goal-bound shot - Damien Duff’s 91st minute finger-stinger - had gone in, it would have replicated what made that fight so spectacular. In the 8th round Ali switched his strategy from defence to attack, and took victory by knockout.
It was not to be for Fulham but, for me, this was a most honourable draw.
Statistically speaking, Liverpool dominated this game. They had 65% of the possession, compared to Fulham’s 35%, and a similar territorial dominance of 66% to 34%. They had 17 shots and 10 corners while the visitors achieved only 1 of each. And so on.
It appears, then, that Fulham “parked the bus”. At least one match report has reiterated Mourinho's famous gripe, and it still carries all the disapproval it did when the then-Chelsea manager coined it.
Liverpool can at least console themselves with this numerical superiority, then, and talk, as they have done, of “deserving” to win. But did they? Should they be able to claim a moral victory here?
Consider this: whose game plan prevailed, Roy’s or Rafa’s? Which manager optimised their resources, deploying their squad most effectively in view of the aforementioned imbalance between the teams?
Open, aesthetically-attractive football remains the holy grail for all teams and their supporters, but there should be no shame here, and there will be no apologies.
Let’s be clear, this wasn’t a 90-minute circus of defensive confusion, with players flailing around like human flak trying to deflect enemy missiles. This was a disciplined, syncopated display. Fulham’s midfield and back fours were lined up like ranks of soldiers, each player engaging when required, before resuming their position, exactly as drilled.
This was a team committed to their manager’s philosophy, and dedicated to faithfully executing his astute tactics.
In fact, I saw a nobility in the defending, an admirable stoicism. There were periods when watching them repel an attack, only to stand their ground and invite another one forward, became almost hypnotic. Dare I say it, there was poetry in their industry. It was defensive zen.
Thorough my biased prism I even felt they were almost, at times, taking a perverse pleasure in it all, encouraging the opposition to do their worst. Go on, punch me there…I felt nowt!
Strangely, it even brought to mind the 1974 Heavyweight Championship fight in Zaire, Muhammad Ali and George Foreman’s notorious “Rumble in the Jungle”, with Fulham mirroring Ali’s “rope-a-dope” tactics. Early on, the challenger had deliberately backed himself onto the ropes, inviting pressure from hard-hitting World Champion Foreman. Ali had identified his opponent’s strengths and set out to negate them - why try to compete on his terms? In fact, if Fulham’s single goal-bound shot - Damien Duff’s 91st minute finger-stinger - had gone in, it would have replicated what made that fight so spectacular. In the 8th round Ali switched his strategy from defence to attack, and took victory by knockout.
It was not to be for Fulham but, for me, this was a most honourable draw.
Thursday, 8 April 2010
Saint Wayne: An X-Rated Feature
What a queer compote of the sacred and the profane ITV’s coverage of the Manchester United vs. Bayern Munich game served up last night.
It began with a hushed, awe-struck, announcement that not only had Mr. Wayne Rooney been delivered from physio purgatory into the squad, but - saints preserve us! - he would be starting the game. What trickery was this? What elusive, mystical manoeuvrings had outwitted the logic to which the sporting world had been so naively clinging?
Steve Rider was not backed by choirs of angels, but they were not required. The anchor’s wide-eyed wonder was evangelical enough. So, should all the hardcore atheists, as one, run for cover? Could this single, miraculous occurrence, dispel the papal paedophilia outrage, and dig poor, beleaguered Joe Ratzinger out of a hole?
Somehow, the lame had been made whole again, and we were left wondering whether Old Trafford might become the new Lourdes. Could lengths of yellow and green acrylic emerge as holy relics for the modern age?
But all this worshipping was merely foreplay. What followed was the creation of a new erotic genre: ankle porn. Already aroused with wonder, the viewers were treated to endless, lingering shots of the the sacred soft-tissue, of those unburstable blood vessels. There it was, actually functioning, treading the expectant turf, intercut with shots of its resurrected owner suspended somewhere between beatitude and orgasm.
Even when, during the game, he appeared to suffer the same trauma as the previous week - the money shot, surely - we were shown almost balletic footage of limbs entwining in soft-focus slow-mo. Despite being reduced to a limp spectator, the disciples still rhapodised his impact at half-time - it appears that his assist for the opening goal could not have been performed by any of the other Man Utd players, and hence his inclusion had been a wise one.
Only Sir Alex threatened to undermine the magic when revealing that, actually, the injury had been a mild one, and the medical team had, whilst operating purely within the realms of science, assisted its recovery. What a party pooper, eh! What a Judas!
It began with a hushed, awe-struck, announcement that not only had Mr. Wayne Rooney been delivered from physio purgatory into the squad, but - saints preserve us! - he would be starting the game. What trickery was this? What elusive, mystical manoeuvrings had outwitted the logic to which the sporting world had been so naively clinging?
Steve Rider was not backed by choirs of angels, but they were not required. The anchor’s wide-eyed wonder was evangelical enough. So, should all the hardcore atheists, as one, run for cover? Could this single, miraculous occurrence, dispel the papal paedophilia outrage, and dig poor, beleaguered Joe Ratzinger out of a hole?
Somehow, the lame had been made whole again, and we were left wondering whether Old Trafford might become the new Lourdes. Could lengths of yellow and green acrylic emerge as holy relics for the modern age?
But all this worshipping was merely foreplay. What followed was the creation of a new erotic genre: ankle porn. Already aroused with wonder, the viewers were treated to endless, lingering shots of the the sacred soft-tissue, of those unburstable blood vessels. There it was, actually functioning, treading the expectant turf, intercut with shots of its resurrected owner suspended somewhere between beatitude and orgasm.
Even when, during the game, he appeared to suffer the same trauma as the previous week - the money shot, surely - we were shown almost balletic footage of limbs entwining in soft-focus slow-mo. Despite being reduced to a limp spectator, the disciples still rhapodised his impact at half-time - it appears that his assist for the opening goal could not have been performed by any of the other Man Utd players, and hence his inclusion had been a wise one.
Only Sir Alex threatened to undermine the magic when revealing that, actually, the injury had been a mild one, and the medical team had, whilst operating purely within the realms of science, assisted its recovery. What a party pooper, eh! What a Judas!
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
A Season In Hell
In his book, Sum, David Eagleman offers an array of different scenarios describing what might await us in the afterlife (should there be one).
In the first, he suggests that after death we might immediately begin to re-live the life that has just ended, but this time around all common activities would be grouped together and experienced in discrete blocks.
Hence, we would enjoy our entire life’s worth of showers in a single two-hundred-day-long drenching, and then bathe no more. Our lifetime allocation of pain would be endured in one excruciating stretch, and for three years we would do nothing but eat. We would sit at traffic lights, immobile, for six weeks, and for two days do nothing but tie shoelaces. And so on.
Apparently, a high-ranking official at the Premier League is an admirer of Mr. Eagleman’s book, and has become smitten with this notion in particular. In idle moments he is apt to daydream, and has begun to visualise the football season, which resides within his governance, being reorganised in such a way. However, upon receding from his fantastical reveries, and slipping reluctantly back to the intractable, Einstein-ordered world, he glumly acknowledges that such a transformation would require the ability to reconfigure human existence itself, something currently beyond his organisation’s remit.
However, emerging rumours imply that the official in question happened upon one Sepp Blatter in the washroom at an International Football soiree recently and, unable to stifle his vision any longer, confided in the FIFA president. Apparently Mr. Blatter, always enthused by innovation, promised to fully exploit his influence. So, should he manage to mobilise all his distinguished contacts, both divine and mortal, our future footballing experience might one day resemble the following:
All of a team’s home games would be grouped together and all elements thereof similarly grouped. Hence, if it currently takes you one hour to travel to the match, in this new reality you endure a nineteen-hour trip prior to kick-off.
Upon arriving at the ground you buy nineteen programmes. You then queue for fifty-seven minutes to pass through the turnstile where you undergo a nine-and-a-half minute frisk by the steward.
You queue for ninety-five minutes at a counter, where you buy nineteen drinks. Upon reaching your seat thirty-eight minutes later, the hot drinks are cold and the cold drinks are warm.
During the players’ eight-hour warm-up, the teams are announced nineteen times in a row.
After nineteen coin tosses, the referee blows his whistle for ninety-five seconds.
Immediately the team score anywhere between forty and sixty goals, one after another. The stewards struggle to repel a pitch invasion.
You then sit and watch some fourteen hours of open play. Despite periods that see over a hundred successive fouls, seventy-five corners (one-by-one), a ten-player scuffle, and a broken leg, there are no more goals.
You spend thirteen-and-a-half hours wondering why you bother watching this rubbish, and thirty minutes realising why you do.
At half-time, which lasts for four-and-three-quarter hours, you stand for thirty-eight minutes in the queue for the toilet. Once there, you urinate for nine-and-a-half minutes continuously. For four of these minutes you repeat to your neighbour how poor the team are playing, spend three minutes complaining about the referee, and two minutes staring blankly at the wall.
Back in your seat, for ninety-five minutes you watch children in one-on-ones with a goalkeeper whilst working your way through nineteen Chicken Balti pies.
A further fourteen hours of open play includes a forty-minute period of continuous substitutions, three sending offs, and possibly even a change of manager.
It concludes with you witnessing your team concede between forty and sixty goals consecutively, your torment only halted by the final, elongated, whistle.
Over the next ninety-five minutes the crowd slowly files out of the ground, while John Paintsil undertakes nineteen laps of the pitch.
After the nineteen-hour return journey home, you settle down to watch twenty-six hours straight of Match Of The Day, but have to wait until the last hour-and-a-half to see the Fulham highlights.
In the first, he suggests that after death we might immediately begin to re-live the life that has just ended, but this time around all common activities would be grouped together and experienced in discrete blocks.
Hence, we would enjoy our entire life’s worth of showers in a single two-hundred-day-long drenching, and then bathe no more. Our lifetime allocation of pain would be endured in one excruciating stretch, and for three years we would do nothing but eat. We would sit at traffic lights, immobile, for six weeks, and for two days do nothing but tie shoelaces. And so on.
Apparently, a high-ranking official at the Premier League is an admirer of Mr. Eagleman’s book, and has become smitten with this notion in particular. In idle moments he is apt to daydream, and has begun to visualise the football season, which resides within his governance, being reorganised in such a way. However, upon receding from his fantastical reveries, and slipping reluctantly back to the intractable, Einstein-ordered world, he glumly acknowledges that such a transformation would require the ability to reconfigure human existence itself, something currently beyond his organisation’s remit.
However, emerging rumours imply that the official in question happened upon one Sepp Blatter in the washroom at an International Football soiree recently and, unable to stifle his vision any longer, confided in the FIFA president. Apparently Mr. Blatter, always enthused by innovation, promised to fully exploit his influence. So, should he manage to mobilise all his distinguished contacts, both divine and mortal, our future footballing experience might one day resemble the following:
All of a team’s home games would be grouped together and all elements thereof similarly grouped. Hence, if it currently takes you one hour to travel to the match, in this new reality you endure a nineteen-hour trip prior to kick-off.
Upon arriving at the ground you buy nineteen programmes. You then queue for fifty-seven minutes to pass through the turnstile where you undergo a nine-and-a-half minute frisk by the steward.
You queue for ninety-five minutes at a counter, where you buy nineteen drinks. Upon reaching your seat thirty-eight minutes later, the hot drinks are cold and the cold drinks are warm.
During the players’ eight-hour warm-up, the teams are announced nineteen times in a row.
After nineteen coin tosses, the referee blows his whistle for ninety-five seconds.
Immediately the team score anywhere between forty and sixty goals, one after another. The stewards struggle to repel a pitch invasion.
You then sit and watch some fourteen hours of open play. Despite periods that see over a hundred successive fouls, seventy-five corners (one-by-one), a ten-player scuffle, and a broken leg, there are no more goals.
You spend thirteen-and-a-half hours wondering why you bother watching this rubbish, and thirty minutes realising why you do.
At half-time, which lasts for four-and-three-quarter hours, you stand for thirty-eight minutes in the queue for the toilet. Once there, you urinate for nine-and-a-half minutes continuously. For four of these minutes you repeat to your neighbour how poor the team are playing, spend three minutes complaining about the referee, and two minutes staring blankly at the wall.
Back in your seat, for ninety-five minutes you watch children in one-on-ones with a goalkeeper whilst working your way through nineteen Chicken Balti pies.
A further fourteen hours of open play includes a forty-minute period of continuous substitutions, three sending offs, and possibly even a change of manager.
It concludes with you witnessing your team concede between forty and sixty goals consecutively, your torment only halted by the final, elongated, whistle.
Over the next ninety-five minutes the crowd slowly files out of the ground, while John Paintsil undertakes nineteen laps of the pitch.
After the nineteen-hour return journey home, you settle down to watch twenty-six hours straight of Match Of The Day, but have to wait until the last hour-and-a-half to see the Fulham highlights.
Thursday, 24 September 2009
Are We Sparta F.C.?
Against Wolves last Sunday, Fulham contrived another depressingly anaemic performance.
Being organised is honourable, but at times the players displayed the desire of automatons. Roy’s robots. And, having been excused Europa League exertions, they were unable to blame Trans-Europe excess for the lack of both craft and work that they were guilty of.
It was heartening, at least, when Roy Hodgson, subverting his benign uncle image somewhat, delivered an unusually explicit autopsy regarding the shortcomings of the team via his post-match interview.
He related how the entire team, apart from John Paintsil, had been spared the trip to Bulgaria the previous Thursday, and had instead spent all week “preparing to play against Wolves”. Unusually, he even opted to single out specific errors by Hangeland and Dempsey that led to the goals, something he rarely relies upon.
From a typically restrained man, such comments suggest he was seething. If he opts to exercise his irritability when he reassembles the culprits on the training pitch, a positive change should result.
Jah Wobble, ex-PIL bass-playing explorer and disarmingly erudite geezer, once suggested that if he ever managed a Premiership team, he would “car bomb” what he saw as overpaid, over-indulged players, and force the rest into barracks on starvation wages. They would “live more like warrior poets”, he insists, “and they’d have to study Plato.”
I’d certainly be interested in the effects of such an austere regimen on the Gucci washbag brigade.
Alternatively, Roy could grant the so-called ‘second string’ team who themselves, it seems, made like warriors against Man City’s opulent eleven in Wednesday’s Carling Cup elimination, the right to enlist the first-teamers as their slaves for a week or so.
“Hey, Bobby, fetch me my copy of The Republic…once you’ve finished cleaning my boots, that is.”
Being organised is honourable, but at times the players displayed the desire of automatons. Roy’s robots. And, having been excused Europa League exertions, they were unable to blame Trans-Europe excess for the lack of both craft and work that they were guilty of.
It was heartening, at least, when Roy Hodgson, subverting his benign uncle image somewhat, delivered an unusually explicit autopsy regarding the shortcomings of the team via his post-match interview.
He related how the entire team, apart from John Paintsil, had been spared the trip to Bulgaria the previous Thursday, and had instead spent all week “preparing to play against Wolves”. Unusually, he even opted to single out specific errors by Hangeland and Dempsey that led to the goals, something he rarely relies upon.
From a typically restrained man, such comments suggest he was seething. If he opts to exercise his irritability when he reassembles the culprits on the training pitch, a positive change should result.
Jah Wobble, ex-PIL bass-playing explorer and disarmingly erudite geezer, once suggested that if he ever managed a Premiership team, he would “car bomb” what he saw as overpaid, over-indulged players, and force the rest into barracks on starvation wages. They would “live more like warrior poets”, he insists, “and they’d have to study Plato.”
I’d certainly be interested in the effects of such an austere regimen on the Gucci washbag brigade.
Alternatively, Roy could grant the so-called ‘second string’ team who themselves, it seems, made like warriors against Man City’s opulent eleven in Wednesday’s Carling Cup elimination, the right to enlist the first-teamers as their slaves for a week or so.
“Hey, Bobby, fetch me my copy of The Republic…once you’ve finished cleaning my boots, that is.”
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Hodgson’s Choice: Fulham’s Season 2008-09
Life is all about endings and beginnings; this is about two endings with a beginning in between.
In 2007-08, Fulham ended the season 17th in the Premier League with 36 points. They escaped 18th position via goal difference.
In 2008-09, Fulham ended the season 7th in the Premier League with 53 points. A number of club records were surpassed.
So, what spawned this revision? What elusive alchemy transpired?
Was it a squad of ringers? Were referees being bribed with chintzy timeshares in Magaluf? Had Paul McKenna and Derren Brown been deployed in a mind-bending double-whammy to bewitch Fulham's’ opponents?
To the casual onlooker this transformation must have appeared curious indeed.
It’s true that, furnished with hindsight, few ‘experts’ were slow in flipping their coins of praise into Fulham’s fountain. Admittedly, much of the credit emanated from the sheer unexpectedness of the feat but, nevertheless, the team were lauded, and Roy Hodgson was nominated by many as managerial head boy. Pre-season predictions were strangely misplaced.
These are, naturally, reductive views. Views that compress an entire season into a congenial “Roy done good” sound-bite, but do little to untangle the intrigues underlying such a beguiling outcome.
In retrospect, seasons make their own kind of sense. The journey complete, one can look back down to the base of the mountain and idly pick out the route taken; or gaze up at the summit and marvel at how swiftly gravity managed to undo the efforts of one’s team.
Fear not, Fulham supporters were not eyeing up any distant peaks at August time. For them, another season of cartoonish mid-air scrambling above an open trap-door was a perfectly realistic proposition.
For, despite having been able to savour a summer illuminated from within by the previous season’s still, frankly, unfathomable escape from relegation, the margin had been negligible, and the season itself had been largely wretched and depressing. Consequently, a sense of foreboding still clouded the collective outlook.
True, the football had improved under Hodgson following his installation the preceding January. The team was looking more organised, less flaky certainly, but surely such a slender reprieve could not withstand the vicissitudes of another season? Significant improvement was going to be required or the psychiatric institutions of South West London would be appealing to Mr. Al Fayed’s largesse to fund additional wings before too long.
With the talismanic Brian McBride returning home to the U.S., a fresh strike-pairing of Andrew Johnson and Bobby Zamora were recruited, the latter as part of a package with right-back John Paintsil. Goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer arrived, astonishingly, without an invoice to settle.
Burdened by such uncertainties then, an opening match away against a newly-promoted side was not ideal. In the past few years Fulham sides have virtually arrived gift-wrapped, bedecked in broad white ribbons of surrender, for encounters such as these. Always obliging, always happy to help a rival side break a run or set a club record.
Unsurprisingly, the heavenly clouds that, I believe, generally congregate over Hull did not part to admit shafts of celestial light upon the pitch, neither did the players perform to an accompaniment of ethereal choirs of awestruck angels. It was merely a continuation from the end of last season. But we’d take that. For now.
The crisp, simple passing revived by Hodgson was in evidence. Comfortable with the notion, the players executed it intuitively and, for the most part, successfully, even when angles were tight and space was limited. Fall-guy Seol Ki-Hyeon scored after 8 minutes and the first 20 minutes were embarrassingly one-sided.
Alas, failing to close down a player like Geovanni deserves punishment and Hull equalised. They then became a team that dared to believe, and what is more, they possessed a manager prepared to roll the tactical dice. It was passion against precision, and with Fulham’s future steeliness yet to be forged, passion prevailed. Hodgson declined to counter with his own substitutes and the day was lost.
This (over) reliance on the starting eleven, a reluctance to force the issue with a strategic re-invention constituted the primary criticism of the manager during this time.
Despite following this display with a tenacious, stubborn victory against Arsenal, for so long a team for whom Fulham appeared to have been tailor-made, together with an elegant dismantling of Bolton that almost dissipated at the end, the Hull opener was to provide something of a template for the opening months of the season.
Themes emerged: a prevailing defensive infirmity and the conceding of late goals; Hodgson’s tactical intransigence and refusal to deploy substitutes swiftly enough to influence the game; and doubts whether Murphy and Bullard could co-exist within the same team.
The previous season’s woe resumed with predictable away losses to Blackburn and Burnley (terminating our Carling Cup aspirations). All-too-familiar scenes of self-destruction were witnessed against a mediocre West Ham side with a Johnson sending-off in the first-half.
There were drab displays against WBA (A), Sunderland (H) and Portsmouth (A). Europe could have only been spoken of in the fevered dilations of one whose medication had been mislaid.
Although aesthetically Fulham’s football now comfortably transcended the lumpen scramble served up by Lawrie Sanchez, it could sometimes appear to be artistry for it’s own sake. Players seemed to lull themselves into an almost obsessive-compulsive pattern of passing. There was little urgency, and forward motion was tentative. It was like a comfort blanket of possession.
The team was undoubtedly becoming more organised, more comfortable on the ball, but confidence was porcelain-thin and an offensive edge elusive.
The latter days of Tigana’s reign were often evoked: exquisite passing undermined by an unhurried build-up; time granted to the opposition to re-assemble about their box and nullify all attempts at penetration; Fulham players increasingly static as the ball is passed back and forth 20 yards out.
So, despite careful progress, there was still plenty to irritate the faithful, and the message boards prickled as naysayers locked horns with the increasing numbers of Hodgson converts prepared to walk the long road with him. To them, it was becoming clear that Hodgson’s scheme was, at minimum, a season-long one, and he wasn’t about to become radicalised overnight. However, while he admitted to not “turning cartwheels” when the team wins, and not “getting the shroud out” when they lose, supporters regularly stalked by relegation grow twitchy very quickly, and were understandably craving on-pitch epiphanies to assuage their fears.
Without doubt, Hodgson’s measured manner and equanimity through good times and bad was a critical factor towards the end of the previous season. His refusal to over-react neither to dull-witted defeat, nor thrilling comeback, enabled a calm self-belief to flourish. Such virtues, however, cannot co-exist with a swashbuckling, devil-may-care approach. They are not compatible. Hodgson is, in this respect, the anti-Mourinho. He maintains a stubborn faith that the right choice has been made and that the players and the tactics will come good. Given time.
It was becoming clear that he was aiming to cultivate a standard of play, and then to achieve a consistency in that standard. Improvements should arise naturally as inter-player familiarity develops, and tactics and routines become habituated. This belief was clearly beginning to work, but what it might deliver beyond mere survival, if that, was still uncertain.
Fitness restored, Andrew Johnson had by now teamed up with his intended, Bobby Zamora. Although Johnson’s pace differed from that promised by the brochure, his intelligent runs remained and were now accessorised with a willing work ethic.
A home win against Wigan at the end of October suggested a subtle shifting through the gears. There was a sense of a ship being steadied as instructions became embedded.
November confirmed it. Although the month began with a 1-0 defeat at Everton, it had been a draw-deserving performance at a ground where Fulham are usually chastened. It was followed by a 10-game unbeaten run that took the team through to the third week of January. Steady, indeed.
It was not illusory: the team were becoming more robust, more stoical. The inclusion of four goal-less draws in that sequence revealed even more: the defence, unchanging and increasingly synchronised, was as miserly as it had been for years, and the readiness to initiate defending with the strikers was heartening. It also revealed a team-deep commitment to the system. However, fully-extended, this approach was compromising attacking flair and strike-rate. With survival still paramount, away draws had clearly been earmarked as adequate and saw risk-taking subordinated to a safety-first policy.
Meanwhile, Mark Schwarzer’s careful governance of the Fulham goal was making a mockery of Middlesbrough’s profligacy; John Paintsil, an exuberant, electrified sprite was cultivating cult status whilst making a mockery of the negative reputation that preceded him. Brede Hangeland (who?) was completing his Premiership learning curve at speed and acquiring kudos and stature by the game, and how could Aaron Hughes make such a huge improvement between seasons, at the age of 28?
Two of Hodgson’s talents were becoming manifest: whilst most managers buy what they know, his extensive international education had granted him far greater reach when searching for players adaptable to the Premier League, amenable to his philosophy, and respectful of his limited budget; it was also becoming apparent that players, whatever their age or reputation, could improve under him.
November also saw the fitful and frustrating Gera finally yield his starting place to another improving player: the energetic and pleasingly combative Dempsey, who would retain it for the remainder of the season and make a sterling contribution.
Being so severely injured after playing only 3 games undoubtedly enhanced Jimmy Bullard’s cult status, fuelled expectations, and granted him an initial immunity to criticism. His commitment and irrepressible persona made him popular beyond the club, too. However, amongst those scrutinising his every game, there was a growing discord. Many began to feel that Bullard, the unrepentant maverick, with his refusal, or simple inability, to comply with Hodsgon’s disciplined regimen was causing an imbalance in the team. Hodgson, too, was perturbed, and expressed his displeasure (albeit cryptically) a few times. For one so dignified, polite, and resolutely uncritical, privately he must have been incensed.
Despite bearing the responsibility for covering Bullard’s insatiable roaming, Danny Murphy had been making a fine fist of his holding role - a veritable Merseyside Makélélé - but many felt that his influence was being diluted. Nevertheless, Bullard’s stock remained high via his flickering creativity, fleeting success with a free-kick, and that enduring affection.
Hodgson, the arch-pragmatist, was of course impervious to such sentimentality and come Christmas, amid rumours of contractual spats, and with Bullard’s crown tarnished and sitting somewhat askew, he did what at the start of the season would have been utterly unthinkable: he sold him to Hull for £5m. In the light of Bullard and Fulham’s respective fates, this is now widely regarded as one of the best pieces of business ever conducted by the club.
Furthermore, the Murphy/Bullard curate’s egg was well and truly cooked.
In came Dickson Etuhu, a scapegoat-in-waiting burdened with the baggage of a reputation based on Chinese Whispers, and aggravated by message board tittle-tattle. Chris Baird was presumably only too happy to pass on his coat of many curses, and accept relegation to public enemy number two. It’s true, in his first few games Etuhu looked about as incongruous as it’s possible to look on a football pitch. He appeared as disorientated as if he’d gone to bed in a Peckham high-rise and woken up in a Moroccan souk. Perhaps he’d fallen onto the pitch from an orbiting spaceship?
Ultimately, however, the message boards did a roaring trade in humble pie as, once again, Hodgson’s player assessment proved unerringly astute, and gradually the player began performing in accord with his physique and athleticism. More significantly, the Bullard/Etuhu switch liberated Danny Murphy. Released at last, he began to orchestrate the play around him, and followed a robust first-half of the season with a glorious second-half of defensive interceptions spiced liberally with visionary passing.
From here until the end of the season the team continued to consolidate the best home record outside the top four, despite two inexplicable consecutive lapses to Blackburn and Hull.
Bobby Zamora evolved into an unfathomable conundrum. He delivered some visceral displays, bullying and pulling defences out of shape, leaving them battered and battle-weary. He did this most notably at home to Spurs in mid-November when he helped to derail the ‘Redknapp The Messiah’ media roadshow. His brief extended way beyond goal-scoring: he knew that, we knew that. Yet still his impotence in front of goal was bewildering. And bewildered he increasingly seemed. On a few occasions his psyche appeared to splinter before us, and he would depart the scene crestfallen and despondent.
In contrast, the nimble, intelligent Nevland, despite being entitled to a grievance, played as though carefree, and prospered from Zamora’s misery by appearing to score almost every time he replaced him from the bench. The popular Norwegian was under-used but, with Johnson injured for the final few games, the season ended with he and Diomansy Kamara up front. Nevertheless, the team continued to function as before, just as it had done when the vilified Baird had filled-in for the seemingly irreplaceable Hangeland at White Hart Lane on Boxing day. Further evidence of a squad aligning itself seamlessly to a system.
March was madness.
The team’s extraordinary 18-month away win duck, which had eventually been broken with wins in the last 3 games of the previous season appeared to be reassembling itself. Supreme home form was keeping the team mid-table, until a breakthrough at Bolton in the middle of the month.
The following week delivered a stirring triumph over Manchester United despite them losing the previous week, and Fulham receiving a 4-0 F.A. Cup thumping from them only 14 days earlier. In the words of Daniel Taylor (The Guardian), “…Fulham outpassed, outscored and, for long spells, outplayed their opponents.“ Scholes was sent off, Rooney was sent off, and Ronaldo had a nappy tantrum and was mocked by the referee. We had reached 40 points with 8 games to spare and were safe. Yes, that was a good day.
At last, relief could be breathed and this very quickly ceded to celebration. The spectre of previous precarious seasons had been exorcised, and the remaining games could be anticipated with a carefree air.
Admirably, the team continued to play with the resolve and application that they’d demonstrated all season. Some supporters began to ponder Europe, but by then most were too giddy with relief, with Roy, and with the football the team were playing, to realistically consider it without grinning stupidly. So, when the Europa League bonus/booby prize did actually materialise on the final day, it was like finding the satsuma that slips unnoticed to the bottom of your Christmas Day pillowcase.
Club records aside, it’s been a pleasure to have such a humane, dignified human being as the leader, spokesman, and ambassador for our club.
Without being ungrateful, it would have been intriguing to see what this team could achieve with another season under Hodgson’s influence, bolstered by a few more players, but without the burden of the additional games to come. It’s entirely possible that they, and he, have peaked already. Whatever, if he could somehow match this league performance next season, despite having the Europa League to contend with, he will surely be anointed in SW6: he could dispute the laws of physics, moon at the Queen, or start an incestuous death cult in the Brazilian Rainforest, but he would still have no shortage of disciples around here.
This piece was written for, and appears at, Goalfood.Com
In 2007-08, Fulham ended the season 17th in the Premier League with 36 points. They escaped 18th position via goal difference.
In 2008-09, Fulham ended the season 7th in the Premier League with 53 points. A number of club records were surpassed.
So, what spawned this revision? What elusive alchemy transpired?
Was it a squad of ringers? Were referees being bribed with chintzy timeshares in Magaluf? Had Paul McKenna and Derren Brown been deployed in a mind-bending double-whammy to bewitch Fulham's’ opponents?
To the casual onlooker this transformation must have appeared curious indeed.
It’s true that, furnished with hindsight, few ‘experts’ were slow in flipping their coins of praise into Fulham’s fountain. Admittedly, much of the credit emanated from the sheer unexpectedness of the feat but, nevertheless, the team were lauded, and Roy Hodgson was nominated by many as managerial head boy. Pre-season predictions were strangely misplaced.
These are, naturally, reductive views. Views that compress an entire season into a congenial “Roy done good” sound-bite, but do little to untangle the intrigues underlying such a beguiling outcome.
In retrospect, seasons make their own kind of sense. The journey complete, one can look back down to the base of the mountain and idly pick out the route taken; or gaze up at the summit and marvel at how swiftly gravity managed to undo the efforts of one’s team.
Fear not, Fulham supporters were not eyeing up any distant peaks at August time. For them, another season of cartoonish mid-air scrambling above an open trap-door was a perfectly realistic proposition.
For, despite having been able to savour a summer illuminated from within by the previous season’s still, frankly, unfathomable escape from relegation, the margin had been negligible, and the season itself had been largely wretched and depressing. Consequently, a sense of foreboding still clouded the collective outlook.
True, the football had improved under Hodgson following his installation the preceding January. The team was looking more organised, less flaky certainly, but surely such a slender reprieve could not withstand the vicissitudes of another season? Significant improvement was going to be required or the psychiatric institutions of South West London would be appealing to Mr. Al Fayed’s largesse to fund additional wings before too long.
With the talismanic Brian McBride returning home to the U.S., a fresh strike-pairing of Andrew Johnson and Bobby Zamora were recruited, the latter as part of a package with right-back John Paintsil. Goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer arrived, astonishingly, without an invoice to settle.
Burdened by such uncertainties then, an opening match away against a newly-promoted side was not ideal. In the past few years Fulham sides have virtually arrived gift-wrapped, bedecked in broad white ribbons of surrender, for encounters such as these. Always obliging, always happy to help a rival side break a run or set a club record.
Unsurprisingly, the heavenly clouds that, I believe, generally congregate over Hull did not part to admit shafts of celestial light upon the pitch, neither did the players perform to an accompaniment of ethereal choirs of awestruck angels. It was merely a continuation from the end of last season. But we’d take that. For now.
The crisp, simple passing revived by Hodgson was in evidence. Comfortable with the notion, the players executed it intuitively and, for the most part, successfully, even when angles were tight and space was limited. Fall-guy Seol Ki-Hyeon scored after 8 minutes and the first 20 minutes were embarrassingly one-sided.
Alas, failing to close down a player like Geovanni deserves punishment and Hull equalised. They then became a team that dared to believe, and what is more, they possessed a manager prepared to roll the tactical dice. It was passion against precision, and with Fulham’s future steeliness yet to be forged, passion prevailed. Hodgson declined to counter with his own substitutes and the day was lost.
This (over) reliance on the starting eleven, a reluctance to force the issue with a strategic re-invention constituted the primary criticism of the manager during this time.
Despite following this display with a tenacious, stubborn victory against Arsenal, for so long a team for whom Fulham appeared to have been tailor-made, together with an elegant dismantling of Bolton that almost dissipated at the end, the Hull opener was to provide something of a template for the opening months of the season.
Themes emerged: a prevailing defensive infirmity and the conceding of late goals; Hodgson’s tactical intransigence and refusal to deploy substitutes swiftly enough to influence the game; and doubts whether Murphy and Bullard could co-exist within the same team.
The previous season’s woe resumed with predictable away losses to Blackburn and Burnley (terminating our Carling Cup aspirations). All-too-familiar scenes of self-destruction were witnessed against a mediocre West Ham side with a Johnson sending-off in the first-half.
There were drab displays against WBA (A), Sunderland (H) and Portsmouth (A). Europe could have only been spoken of in the fevered dilations of one whose medication had been mislaid.
Although aesthetically Fulham’s football now comfortably transcended the lumpen scramble served up by Lawrie Sanchez, it could sometimes appear to be artistry for it’s own sake. Players seemed to lull themselves into an almost obsessive-compulsive pattern of passing. There was little urgency, and forward motion was tentative. It was like a comfort blanket of possession.
The team was undoubtedly becoming more organised, more comfortable on the ball, but confidence was porcelain-thin and an offensive edge elusive.
The latter days of Tigana’s reign were often evoked: exquisite passing undermined by an unhurried build-up; time granted to the opposition to re-assemble about their box and nullify all attempts at penetration; Fulham players increasingly static as the ball is passed back and forth 20 yards out.
So, despite careful progress, there was still plenty to irritate the faithful, and the message boards prickled as naysayers locked horns with the increasing numbers of Hodgson converts prepared to walk the long road with him. To them, it was becoming clear that Hodgson’s scheme was, at minimum, a season-long one, and he wasn’t about to become radicalised overnight. However, while he admitted to not “turning cartwheels” when the team wins, and not “getting the shroud out” when they lose, supporters regularly stalked by relegation grow twitchy very quickly, and were understandably craving on-pitch epiphanies to assuage their fears.
Without doubt, Hodgson’s measured manner and equanimity through good times and bad was a critical factor towards the end of the previous season. His refusal to over-react neither to dull-witted defeat, nor thrilling comeback, enabled a calm self-belief to flourish. Such virtues, however, cannot co-exist with a swashbuckling, devil-may-care approach. They are not compatible. Hodgson is, in this respect, the anti-Mourinho. He maintains a stubborn faith that the right choice has been made and that the players and the tactics will come good. Given time.
It was becoming clear that he was aiming to cultivate a standard of play, and then to achieve a consistency in that standard. Improvements should arise naturally as inter-player familiarity develops, and tactics and routines become habituated. This belief was clearly beginning to work, but what it might deliver beyond mere survival, if that, was still uncertain.
Fitness restored, Andrew Johnson had by now teamed up with his intended, Bobby Zamora. Although Johnson’s pace differed from that promised by the brochure, his intelligent runs remained and were now accessorised with a willing work ethic.
A home win against Wigan at the end of October suggested a subtle shifting through the gears. There was a sense of a ship being steadied as instructions became embedded.
November confirmed it. Although the month began with a 1-0 defeat at Everton, it had been a draw-deserving performance at a ground where Fulham are usually chastened. It was followed by a 10-game unbeaten run that took the team through to the third week of January. Steady, indeed.
It was not illusory: the team were becoming more robust, more stoical. The inclusion of four goal-less draws in that sequence revealed even more: the defence, unchanging and increasingly synchronised, was as miserly as it had been for years, and the readiness to initiate defending with the strikers was heartening. It also revealed a team-deep commitment to the system. However, fully-extended, this approach was compromising attacking flair and strike-rate. With survival still paramount, away draws had clearly been earmarked as adequate and saw risk-taking subordinated to a safety-first policy.
Meanwhile, Mark Schwarzer’s careful governance of the Fulham goal was making a mockery of Middlesbrough’s profligacy; John Paintsil, an exuberant, electrified sprite was cultivating cult status whilst making a mockery of the negative reputation that preceded him. Brede Hangeland (who?) was completing his Premiership learning curve at speed and acquiring kudos and stature by the game, and how could Aaron Hughes make such a huge improvement between seasons, at the age of 28?
Two of Hodgson’s talents were becoming manifest: whilst most managers buy what they know, his extensive international education had granted him far greater reach when searching for players adaptable to the Premier League, amenable to his philosophy, and respectful of his limited budget; it was also becoming apparent that players, whatever their age or reputation, could improve under him.
November also saw the fitful and frustrating Gera finally yield his starting place to another improving player: the energetic and pleasingly combative Dempsey, who would retain it for the remainder of the season and make a sterling contribution.
Being so severely injured after playing only 3 games undoubtedly enhanced Jimmy Bullard’s cult status, fuelled expectations, and granted him an initial immunity to criticism. His commitment and irrepressible persona made him popular beyond the club, too. However, amongst those scrutinising his every game, there was a growing discord. Many began to feel that Bullard, the unrepentant maverick, with his refusal, or simple inability, to comply with Hodsgon’s disciplined regimen was causing an imbalance in the team. Hodgson, too, was perturbed, and expressed his displeasure (albeit cryptically) a few times. For one so dignified, polite, and resolutely uncritical, privately he must have been incensed.
Despite bearing the responsibility for covering Bullard’s insatiable roaming, Danny Murphy had been making a fine fist of his holding role - a veritable Merseyside Makélélé - but many felt that his influence was being diluted. Nevertheless, Bullard’s stock remained high via his flickering creativity, fleeting success with a free-kick, and that enduring affection.
Hodgson, the arch-pragmatist, was of course impervious to such sentimentality and come Christmas, amid rumours of contractual spats, and with Bullard’s crown tarnished and sitting somewhat askew, he did what at the start of the season would have been utterly unthinkable: he sold him to Hull for £5m. In the light of Bullard and Fulham’s respective fates, this is now widely regarded as one of the best pieces of business ever conducted by the club.
Furthermore, the Murphy/Bullard curate’s egg was well and truly cooked.
In came Dickson Etuhu, a scapegoat-in-waiting burdened with the baggage of a reputation based on Chinese Whispers, and aggravated by message board tittle-tattle. Chris Baird was presumably only too happy to pass on his coat of many curses, and accept relegation to public enemy number two. It’s true, in his first few games Etuhu looked about as incongruous as it’s possible to look on a football pitch. He appeared as disorientated as if he’d gone to bed in a Peckham high-rise and woken up in a Moroccan souk. Perhaps he’d fallen onto the pitch from an orbiting spaceship?
Ultimately, however, the message boards did a roaring trade in humble pie as, once again, Hodgson’s player assessment proved unerringly astute, and gradually the player began performing in accord with his physique and athleticism. More significantly, the Bullard/Etuhu switch liberated Danny Murphy. Released at last, he began to orchestrate the play around him, and followed a robust first-half of the season with a glorious second-half of defensive interceptions spiced liberally with visionary passing.
From here until the end of the season the team continued to consolidate the best home record outside the top four, despite two inexplicable consecutive lapses to Blackburn and Hull.
Bobby Zamora evolved into an unfathomable conundrum. He delivered some visceral displays, bullying and pulling defences out of shape, leaving them battered and battle-weary. He did this most notably at home to Spurs in mid-November when he helped to derail the ‘Redknapp The Messiah’ media roadshow. His brief extended way beyond goal-scoring: he knew that, we knew that. Yet still his impotence in front of goal was bewildering. And bewildered he increasingly seemed. On a few occasions his psyche appeared to splinter before us, and he would depart the scene crestfallen and despondent.
In contrast, the nimble, intelligent Nevland, despite being entitled to a grievance, played as though carefree, and prospered from Zamora’s misery by appearing to score almost every time he replaced him from the bench. The popular Norwegian was under-used but, with Johnson injured for the final few games, the season ended with he and Diomansy Kamara up front. Nevertheless, the team continued to function as before, just as it had done when the vilified Baird had filled-in for the seemingly irreplaceable Hangeland at White Hart Lane on Boxing day. Further evidence of a squad aligning itself seamlessly to a system.
March was madness.
The team’s extraordinary 18-month away win duck, which had eventually been broken with wins in the last 3 games of the previous season appeared to be reassembling itself. Supreme home form was keeping the team mid-table, until a breakthrough at Bolton in the middle of the month.
The following week delivered a stirring triumph over Manchester United despite them losing the previous week, and Fulham receiving a 4-0 F.A. Cup thumping from them only 14 days earlier. In the words of Daniel Taylor (The Guardian), “…Fulham outpassed, outscored and, for long spells, outplayed their opponents.“ Scholes was sent off, Rooney was sent off, and Ronaldo had a nappy tantrum and was mocked by the referee. We had reached 40 points with 8 games to spare and were safe. Yes, that was a good day.
At last, relief could be breathed and this very quickly ceded to celebration. The spectre of previous precarious seasons had been exorcised, and the remaining games could be anticipated with a carefree air.
Admirably, the team continued to play with the resolve and application that they’d demonstrated all season. Some supporters began to ponder Europe, but by then most were too giddy with relief, with Roy, and with the football the team were playing, to realistically consider it without grinning stupidly. So, when the Europa League bonus/booby prize did actually materialise on the final day, it was like finding the satsuma that slips unnoticed to the bottom of your Christmas Day pillowcase.
Club records aside, it’s been a pleasure to have such a humane, dignified human being as the leader, spokesman, and ambassador for our club.
Without being ungrateful, it would have been intriguing to see what this team could achieve with another season under Hodgson’s influence, bolstered by a few more players, but without the burden of the additional games to come. It’s entirely possible that they, and he, have peaked already. Whatever, if he could somehow match this league performance next season, despite having the Europa League to contend with, he will surely be anointed in SW6: he could dispute the laws of physics, moon at the Queen, or start an incestuous death cult in the Brazilian Rainforest, but he would still have no shortage of disciples around here.
This piece was written for, and appears at, Goalfood.Com
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
My Drink Problem
I have been drunk many times this season. More times than I had planned. Considering that last season I was virtually teetotal, it's a worrying trend.
Encouragingly though, I have yet to resort to drinking alone. I only indulge in company. Good company.
My mistake lies in continually underestimating the potency of the mixture before me.
Several times, supping nonchalantly from what I consider a benign brew, I have risen suddenly to my feet, only to feel that unsteady, heady rush of intoxication. I check the label. What is this stuff?
Soon habits form, unnoticed.
It's true, though, I am also guilty of mixing my drinks.
On the day of the Arsenal game, heavy with foreboding, I could only face a weak juice. Then, after 20 minutes or so, I was bought a pint of Hangeland's Desire - in a tall glass - a reliable Norweigan draft. The session ended with me showering all my fellow drinkers with a rare, sparkling wine, called Victory. That was some lock-in.
For the Chelsea match my stomach was in knots; the DTs even returned. After an hour and a half of tension, I had had my fill. I was wearying of all this, and wondering how I would be able to face the neighbours in the morning. I knocked back a final, sorrow-drowning gin when, just before last orders, a generous American chap barrelled in through the saloon doors and stood everyone a celebratory tipple. It was a great leveller.
As well as punctuating happy events, drink can also aggravate depression.
A few times recently I have been seated in my local, in my usual seat, safe in the knowledge that a predictable, uneventful evening lay ahead. The bar had been well-stocked with anticipation, and all the punters' favourites were available (Murphy's stout and, for those preferring shorts, a mature Johnson's malt). Such is the hubris of the addict. Of course, each time I became aware of the rising chorus of northern voices (Blackburn, I think; maybe Hull), I should have known. On both occasions, the wine I ordered was corked, and we spent the rest of the night sipping defizzed coke through a straw.
Last Saturday was a day of reckoning for me in my battle with the booze. I had been seated at a busy bar for 45 minutes or so, surrounded by day-tripping Liverpudlians. I was desperately trying to get served. It was no fun. As time passed, however, my mood brightened. A master of self-deception, as most of us drinkers are, I ordered a magnum of champagne. Seize the day! I told myself. I had been struggling with the corkscrew for a couple of minutes when suddenly I felt a punch to the kidneys - I reckon it was one of the Liverpool crowd. The next thing I knew I was retching in the Stevenage Road gutter.
Never again, I said. Enough is enough.
At this point most sane people would climb aboard the wagon. Tell themselves that it's just not worth the pain and the heartache.
Others might suggest that it's just a social thing: "I can stop at any time."
Many, of course, like me, are weak. We opt for the hair of the dog.
Well, what can I say? I've heard of a hostelry called Eastlands, and I figured that just one more sip of the stuff wouldn't hurt.
Fancy a couple of halves, anyone?
Encouragingly though, I have yet to resort to drinking alone. I only indulge in company. Good company.
My mistake lies in continually underestimating the potency of the mixture before me.
Several times, supping nonchalantly from what I consider a benign brew, I have risen suddenly to my feet, only to feel that unsteady, heady rush of intoxication. I check the label. What is this stuff?
Soon habits form, unnoticed.
It's true, though, I am also guilty of mixing my drinks.
On the day of the Arsenal game, heavy with foreboding, I could only face a weak juice. Then, after 20 minutes or so, I was bought a pint of Hangeland's Desire - in a tall glass - a reliable Norweigan draft. The session ended with me showering all my fellow drinkers with a rare, sparkling wine, called Victory. That was some lock-in.
For the Chelsea match my stomach was in knots; the DTs even returned. After an hour and a half of tension, I had had my fill. I was wearying of all this, and wondering how I would be able to face the neighbours in the morning. I knocked back a final, sorrow-drowning gin when, just before last orders, a generous American chap barrelled in through the saloon doors and stood everyone a celebratory tipple. It was a great leveller.
As well as punctuating happy events, drink can also aggravate depression.
A few times recently I have been seated in my local, in my usual seat, safe in the knowledge that a predictable, uneventful evening lay ahead. The bar had been well-stocked with anticipation, and all the punters' favourites were available (Murphy's stout and, for those preferring shorts, a mature Johnson's malt). Such is the hubris of the addict. Of course, each time I became aware of the rising chorus of northern voices (Blackburn, I think; maybe Hull), I should have known. On both occasions, the wine I ordered was corked, and we spent the rest of the night sipping defizzed coke through a straw.
Last Saturday was a day of reckoning for me in my battle with the booze. I had been seated at a busy bar for 45 minutes or so, surrounded by day-tripping Liverpudlians. I was desperately trying to get served. It was no fun. As time passed, however, my mood brightened. A master of self-deception, as most of us drinkers are, I ordered a magnum of champagne. Seize the day! I told myself. I had been struggling with the corkscrew for a couple of minutes when suddenly I felt a punch to the kidneys - I reckon it was one of the Liverpool crowd. The next thing I knew I was retching in the Stevenage Road gutter.
Never again, I said. Enough is enough.
At this point most sane people would climb aboard the wagon. Tell themselves that it's just not worth the pain and the heartache.
Others might suggest that it's just a social thing: "I can stop at any time."
Many, of course, like me, are weak. We opt for the hair of the dog.
Well, what can I say? I've heard of a hostelry called Eastlands, and I figured that just one more sip of the stuff wouldn't hurt.
Fancy a couple of halves, anyone?
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Two Wits Woo
Roy Hodgson shares many traits with Arsene Wenger, and in recent weeks they’ve articulated remarkably similar footballing world-views.
They both suggest a scholarly erudition, a measured and methodological manner informed, one imagines, by daunting text books and technical seminars. Worldly-wise and reasoned, they could both be distinguished emeritus professors crafting one last thesis.
Wenger is more prone to acidity when wronged, more likely to give rise to the withering rejoinder or wounded retort; Hodgson appears more forgiving.
Nevertheless, it’s fairly easy to imagine either as an owl.
Hodgson’s pledge to the considered, long-term, approach (see previous post), was echoed by Wenger recently:
“We have to rise above the pressure and the expectation levels and be guided more by what we want to achieve and how we want to play football than by people who want perfection immediately. I stick to what I believe is right. You have moments that go well and those that go less well. You are not God when everyone says you are, and you are not miserable when everyone says you are. The truth is somewhere in between."
This Saturday, Hodgson’s worthy purism will compete with the bullish pragmatism and elusive alchemy of Harry Redknapp - peddler of his own indisputable, but more ragged, wisdom. Will the curtain be pulled back to reveal a cardboard conjuror reciting empty spells, or will the Spurs Manager’s messianic aura amplify?
And, if undone, will the Fulham Manager remain tied to his philosophy?
They both suggest a scholarly erudition, a measured and methodological manner informed, one imagines, by daunting text books and technical seminars. Worldly-wise and reasoned, they could both be distinguished emeritus professors crafting one last thesis.
Wenger is more prone to acidity when wronged, more likely to give rise to the withering rejoinder or wounded retort; Hodgson appears more forgiving.
Nevertheless, it’s fairly easy to imagine either as an owl.
Hodgson’s pledge to the considered, long-term, approach (see previous post), was echoed by Wenger recently:
“We have to rise above the pressure and the expectation levels and be guided more by what we want to achieve and how we want to play football than by people who want perfection immediately. I stick to what I believe is right. You have moments that go well and those that go less well. You are not God when everyone says you are, and you are not miserable when everyone says you are. The truth is somewhere in between."
This Saturday, Hodgson’s worthy purism will compete with the bullish pragmatism and elusive alchemy of Harry Redknapp - peddler of his own indisputable, but more ragged, wisdom. Will the curtain be pulled back to reveal a cardboard conjuror reciting empty spells, or will the Spurs Manager’s messianic aura amplify?
And, if undone, will the Fulham Manager remain tied to his philosophy?
Friday, 31 October 2008
Modesty Ablaze
When Fulham won three consecutive away games at the end of last season – the first, against Reading, breaking an 18-month run without a victory away from Craven Cottage – it looked as though that particular demon had been exquisitely skewered. However, with 4 away losses out of 4 this season, and an all-too-familiar infirmity being displayed, it was beginning to look as though this ghost of season’s past was dusting itself down for a resumption of haunting duties.
It is in the looming shadow of such a spectre therefore that the point gained at Portsmouth last Sunday should be eagerly grasped, and the ongoing shortcomings nonchalantly shuffled and placed in the “pending” tray to be revisited later. They are, in any case, well known to all, and do not bear reiterating here. For the moment, anyway.
For we must now accept that Mr. Hodgson will not become radicalised overnight. This is the way it is, and the way it will be during his time at Fulham. “You’ve got to remain modest”, he said recently, and shaking our collective fists at his philosophy will not cause it to splinter, and provoke him into a flurry of reckless, reflex tinkering. We must walk the long road with him, or else prepare for a future of fulminating, and festering resentment.
Maturity and experience beget patience, and faith in the long view. Roy’s approach is a season-long one, perhaps even extending beyond that. He is aiming to cultivate a standard of play, and then to achieve a consistency in that standard. Hopefully improvements will arise naturally as inter-player familiarity develops, and tactics and routines become habituated. The intention is that over the course of the season that this will achieve the club’s aims. What they may be beyond mere survival has yet to be made explicit.
He is thus committed to not “turning cartwheels” when the team wins, and not “getting the shroud out” when we lose. This refusal to entertain the extreme reaction may be at variance with the typical supporter’s approach, but then he bears the responsibility of orchestrating an entire campaign, and not just (over) reacting to individual results.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” suggested Ralph Waldo Emerson. But he wasn’t a football manager, and for Roy Hodgson it looks set to be the angel on his shoulder.
It is in the looming shadow of such a spectre therefore that the point gained at Portsmouth last Sunday should be eagerly grasped, and the ongoing shortcomings nonchalantly shuffled and placed in the “pending” tray to be revisited later. They are, in any case, well known to all, and do not bear reiterating here. For the moment, anyway.
For we must now accept that Mr. Hodgson will not become radicalised overnight. This is the way it is, and the way it will be during his time at Fulham. “You’ve got to remain modest”, he said recently, and shaking our collective fists at his philosophy will not cause it to splinter, and provoke him into a flurry of reckless, reflex tinkering. We must walk the long road with him, or else prepare for a future of fulminating, and festering resentment.
Maturity and experience beget patience, and faith in the long view. Roy’s approach is a season-long one, perhaps even extending beyond that. He is aiming to cultivate a standard of play, and then to achieve a consistency in that standard. Hopefully improvements will arise naturally as inter-player familiarity develops, and tactics and routines become habituated. The intention is that over the course of the season that this will achieve the club’s aims. What they may be beyond mere survival has yet to be made explicit.
He is thus committed to not “turning cartwheels” when the team wins, and not “getting the shroud out” when we lose. This refusal to entertain the extreme reaction may be at variance with the typical supporter’s approach, but then he bears the responsibility of orchestrating an entire campaign, and not just (over) reacting to individual results.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” suggested Ralph Waldo Emerson. But he wasn’t a football manager, and for Roy Hodgson it looks set to be the angel on his shoulder.
Monday, 9 June 2008
Tea, Toast & Transfers
A fascinating insight, courtesy of the East London Guardian series of publications, on how multi-million pound premiership transfers are conducted these days. According to said publication, West Ham are to make a bid for Fulham’s Jimmy Bullard having apparently been alerted to his availability by a rather hopeful little paragraph in the Sunday People. The same paper that earlier in the year insisted that John Collins was to about to take over from Roy Hodgson.
I’m sure we can picture all picture Mr. Alan Curbishley propped up in bed, perusing the Sunday papers over breakfast, “AC” emblazoned proudly on his claret and blue jim-jams, spotting the offending piece and immediately reaching over to the bedside table for his phone (careful not to disturb Mrs. C), and speed-dialling Roy Hodgson’s number.
I’m sure we can picture all picture Mr. Alan Curbishley propped up in bed, perusing the Sunday papers over breakfast, “AC” emblazoned proudly on his claret and blue jim-jams, spotting the offending piece and immediately reaching over to the bedside table for his phone (careful not to disturb Mrs. C), and speed-dialling Roy Hodgson’s number.
Saturday, 3 May 2008
God Help Us
On a day like today, here are some thoughts that inspire whilst at the same time providing some context.
Don't be embarrassed if you feel a few tears forming, for this encapsulates exactly why, if today is to be Brian's final appearance at Craven Cottage, he will never be forgotten.
Don't be embarrassed if you feel a few tears forming, for this encapsulates exactly why, if today is to be Brian's final appearance at Craven Cottage, he will never be forgotten.
Sunday, 20 April 2008
Welcome To The Working Week
The Work section of last Saturday’s Guardian carried a profile of Nigel Reo-Coker, a professional footballer with Aston Villa.
He comes across as a dedicated, somewhat intense, fellow who appreciates the rewards of his profession, and acknowledges that he leads “a very privileged life.”
He describes his typical ‘working’ week:
Monday: A “warm-down training session. You’d probably be out there on the pitch for and hour, an hour and a half.”
This runs between 10.30 a.m. and 12 p.m., and is followed by lunch (“prepared by chefs”). After lunch, “the rest of the day is yours”. By 1 p.m., he’s gone.
Tuesday: As for Monday.
Wednesday: Day off.
Thursday: As for Monday and Tuesday.
Friday: A light training session, “an hour maximum”.
Is this typical of a Premiership club?
Does this schedule address fitness maintenance, ball skills, set pieces (defensive and offensive), open play drills (defensive and offensive), actual matches, discussions of tactics, match video analysis?
All crammed into these tiny slots?
However fit players may start the season, one or two high-intensity, 90-minute, games per week is surely insufficient to maintain peak fitness. I would expect just fitness alone – aerobic, anaerobic, plus light weights in the gym - to require sessions of this length.
An Honest Day’s Pay
The claim about players being overpaid is an oft-repeated one, so I’ll refrain from banging that drum here, but the above revelations certainly cast their salaries in a new light.
Reo-Coker suggests that the average wage for a Premiership footballer is £25,000-30,000 a week (£1.3-1.56m a year), plus endorsements.
This is quite plainly a considerable income for any occupation.
However, when annual salaries are quoted, it is usually a given that the job in question comprises the typical working week of 40 hours. Many employers have reduced this recently to 37.5, or 35 hours, but, of course, many employees do much more than this too.
If the details provide by Reo-Coker are accurate, the professional footballer can presumably be putting in no more than 20 hours per week, including games?
Not only does this seem astonishingly meagre for supposedly top- level athletes (there are few where no room for improvement can be identified), but it requires their annual salaries, for comparison with others, to be doubled.
He comes across as a dedicated, somewhat intense, fellow who appreciates the rewards of his profession, and acknowledges that he leads “a very privileged life.”
He describes his typical ‘working’ week:
Monday: A “warm-down training session. You’d probably be out there on the pitch for and hour, an hour and a half.”
This runs between 10.30 a.m. and 12 p.m., and is followed by lunch (“prepared by chefs”). After lunch, “the rest of the day is yours”. By 1 p.m., he’s gone.
Tuesday: As for Monday.
Wednesday: Day off.
Thursday: As for Monday and Tuesday.
Friday: A light training session, “an hour maximum”.
Is this typical of a Premiership club?
Does this schedule address fitness maintenance, ball skills, set pieces (defensive and offensive), open play drills (defensive and offensive), actual matches, discussions of tactics, match video analysis?
All crammed into these tiny slots?
However fit players may start the season, one or two high-intensity, 90-minute, games per week is surely insufficient to maintain peak fitness. I would expect just fitness alone – aerobic, anaerobic, plus light weights in the gym - to require sessions of this length.
An Honest Day’s Pay
The claim about players being overpaid is an oft-repeated one, so I’ll refrain from banging that drum here, but the above revelations certainly cast their salaries in a new light.
Reo-Coker suggests that the average wage for a Premiership footballer is £25,000-30,000 a week (£1.3-1.56m a year), plus endorsements.
This is quite plainly a considerable income for any occupation.
However, when annual salaries are quoted, it is usually a given that the job in question comprises the typical working week of 40 hours. Many employers have reduced this recently to 37.5, or 35 hours, but, of course, many employees do much more than this too.
If the details provide by Reo-Coker are accurate, the professional footballer can presumably be putting in no more than 20 hours per week, including games?
Not only does this seem astonishingly meagre for supposedly top- level athletes (there are few where no room for improvement can be identified), but it requires their annual salaries, for comparison with others, to be doubled.
Tuesday, 8 April 2008
World Peace By Half-Time
This beautifully-rendered punch to the solar plexus of the hysterical, self-important, overwrought 'guardians' of world sport, is similar in thrust to my recent lament about football stadia. It deserves to be read by everyone concerned about the rampant hi-jacking of sporting events for marketing, moralising, and general middle-class arsing around.
Sunday, 30 March 2008
A Park To Be Proud Of?
An off-the-shelf corrugated shortbread tin, with a building society and a Starbucks coffee outlet embedded.
It could have been Middlesbrough; could have been Middlesbrough’s stewards. It could have been Leicester. It could have been...
A Subway and a Frankie & Benny’s on one side, a Kwik-Fit on the other. All encircled by identical shoebox offices with smoked-glass windows - home to endless ‘data’ companies.
Pre-match exhortations to get oneself to the megastore and pick up a dressing gown so as to receive a pair of slippers FREE!
Breezeblock ‘conveniences’ with stainless steel troughs and chipboard doors.
Every announcement delivered “in proud association with...” someone. Maybe that’s why it’s called ‘Pride Park’?
Constant surveillance.
A retail park by a dual carriageway.
Opposite a Harvester and a Travelodge.
One day, all football stadiums will be made this way.
It could have been Middlesbrough; could have been Middlesbrough’s stewards. It could have been Leicester. It could have been...
A Subway and a Frankie & Benny’s on one side, a Kwik-Fit on the other. All encircled by identical shoebox offices with smoked-glass windows - home to endless ‘data’ companies.
Pre-match exhortations to get oneself to the megastore and pick up a dressing gown so as to receive a pair of slippers FREE!
Breezeblock ‘conveniences’ with stainless steel troughs and chipboard doors.
Every announcement delivered “in proud association with...” someone. Maybe that’s why it’s called ‘Pride Park’?
Constant surveillance.
A retail park by a dual carriageway.
Opposite a Harvester and a Travelodge.
One day, all football stadiums will be made this way.
Thursday, 13 March 2008
Chance. A Fine Thing?
Over at the esteemed House of Craven t’other day, Mr. Rich was tickling the underbelly of the role of randomness in football.
Without sidestepping into an oblique treatise on Brownian Motion, I thought I’d give the screw cap a slight twist and allow a few aerated bubbles of my own to make their bid for freedom. Please consider the impending hiss of escaping gas as an affectionate addendum rather than a challenge.
My fledgling consideration of the influence of chance, or randomness, in football would be founded on the fact that for a player participating in a game, there are things he can control and things he can’t control. A far-from-exhaustive list:
Can’t Control
~the weather (North of Watford/South of Watford)
~the time of day (evening kick-off? I’ll miss “Pimp My Crib”!)
~the pitch (bowls lawn/turnip field)
~the ball (design or inflation)
~the referee (myopic, bewildered, spiteful)
~the venue (home/away)
~the opponents’ play
~his team mates (although he should have some notion of how they might respond through training and experience, and he
could (should) influence them via communication)
Can Control
~the decisions he makes when he has the ball
~the decisions he makes when he doesn’t have the ball
The above suggests that whilst much is indeed governed by chance, each player still has a choice about how he responds at any given moment throughout a game, coupled with a varying degree of understanding about the potential behaviour of the players around him. As we know, the right choice at the right time can win a game. These choices are clearly prey to a number of factors: experience, “natural” ability, mood (“the red mist”), fatigue, will to win, and I’m sure many others.
I would also propose that where teams are dominant within a league, and chance is apparently playing less of a role, that it is this concept of inter-player understanding that is in the ascendancy (greater individual player ability being a given in the more successful teams): players having a better understanding of what their team mates are going to do in any given situation. Doesn’t some of Arsenal’s play appear almost telepathic at times? Less wasted runs, less misplaced balls. Percentages, percentages.
A final comment about Rich’s reference to tactics – another elusive, will-o'-the-wisp, aspect to the game that refuses to be quantified or pinned down. Tactics are the manager’s concept, but the player’s duty to execute. Clearly, many things can interfere with and distort the message on its pathway from whiteboard to pitch: a kind of footballing Chinese Whispers:
~Did the manager express himself correctly?
~Did the players understand it correctly?
~Does the player have the ability/energy/desire to implement it?
~Will the player’s opponent allow him to implement it?
~Were the tactics the correct ones in the first place?
Ay, there’s the rub.
Without sidestepping into an oblique treatise on Brownian Motion, I thought I’d give the screw cap a slight twist and allow a few aerated bubbles of my own to make their bid for freedom. Please consider the impending hiss of escaping gas as an affectionate addendum rather than a challenge.
My fledgling consideration of the influence of chance, or randomness, in football would be founded on the fact that for a player participating in a game, there are things he can control and things he can’t control. A far-from-exhaustive list:
Can’t Control
~the weather (North of Watford/South of Watford)
~the time of day (evening kick-off? I’ll miss “Pimp My Crib”!)
~the pitch (bowls lawn/turnip field)
~the ball (design or inflation)
~the referee (myopic, bewildered, spiteful)
~the venue (home/away)
~the opponents’ play
~his team mates (although he should have some notion of how they might respond through training and experience, and he
could (should) influence them via communication)
Can Control
~the decisions he makes when he has the ball
~the decisions he makes when he doesn’t have the ball
The above suggests that whilst much is indeed governed by chance, each player still has a choice about how he responds at any given moment throughout a game, coupled with a varying degree of understanding about the potential behaviour of the players around him. As we know, the right choice at the right time can win a game. These choices are clearly prey to a number of factors: experience, “natural” ability, mood (“the red mist”), fatigue, will to win, and I’m sure many others.
I would also propose that where teams are dominant within a league, and chance is apparently playing less of a role, that it is this concept of inter-player understanding that is in the ascendancy (greater individual player ability being a given in the more successful teams): players having a better understanding of what their team mates are going to do in any given situation. Doesn’t some of Arsenal’s play appear almost telepathic at times? Less wasted runs, less misplaced balls. Percentages, percentages.
A final comment about Rich’s reference to tactics – another elusive, will-o'-the-wisp, aspect to the game that refuses to be quantified or pinned down. Tactics are the manager’s concept, but the player’s duty to execute. Clearly, many things can interfere with and distort the message on its pathway from whiteboard to pitch: a kind of footballing Chinese Whispers:
~Did the manager express himself correctly?
~Did the players understand it correctly?
~Does the player have the ability/energy/desire to implement it?
~Will the player’s opponent allow him to implement it?
~Were the tactics the correct ones in the first place?
Ay, there’s the rub.
Sunday, 23 December 2007
Sanchez: A Cautious Inquest
There’s little to be gained from turning the earth on a grave once someone has been buried, but here are a few sources that provide some illumination upon life under Fulham's former manager.
The first is drawn from comments in today’s Observer newspaper – I’ll allow you to be the judge of their credibility - and the second is a transcript of Clint Dempsey’s post-match interview with the BBC.
The Observer
“Fulham have stepped up their search for a new manager following the sacking of Lawrie Sanchez. The former Northern Ireland manager was ready to offer his resignation in the aftermath of last weekend's 1-0 home defeat to Newcastle United, but was persuaded not to by advisers. He then spent most of last week awaiting dismissal until being asked to step down on Thursday night.
Although Sanchez moved out many of predecessor Chris Coleman's playing staff, replacing several of them with members of the Northern Ireland squad, he was unpopular in the Craven Cottage dressing room. He frequently criticised the players' attitude and is understood to have launched into an expletive-laden assault on the team at half time of the Newcastle game, accusing them of wanting to get him the sack.”
BBC Post-Match Interview with Clint Dempsey
Is Ray Lewington someone you like working with?
Yeah, definitely. I like it with him and Billy. They’re good guys, positive, they like to get the ball and keep it on the ground and move it. Like a possession style of game – that suits me well. That’s what I love about football, that’s why I love playing it. I’m happy that they’re in charge and I’m just doing everything I can to help the team win.
If Ray was to get the job would that be a popular choice among the players?
I don’t know. I mean, it would suit me. I like those guys, like I said. I think it showed tonight that we played a better style of football under them because they give us a little bit more freedom and allow us as players to express ourselves – express ourselves a little bit more and when your able to do that you enjoy your football a lot more.
The first is drawn from comments in today’s Observer newspaper – I’ll allow you to be the judge of their credibility - and the second is a transcript of Clint Dempsey’s post-match interview with the BBC.
The Observer
“Fulham have stepped up their search for a new manager following the sacking of Lawrie Sanchez. The former Northern Ireland manager was ready to offer his resignation in the aftermath of last weekend's 1-0 home defeat to Newcastle United, but was persuaded not to by advisers. He then spent most of last week awaiting dismissal until being asked to step down on Thursday night.
Although Sanchez moved out many of predecessor Chris Coleman's playing staff, replacing several of them with members of the Northern Ireland squad, he was unpopular in the Craven Cottage dressing room. He frequently criticised the players' attitude and is understood to have launched into an expletive-laden assault on the team at half time of the Newcastle game, accusing them of wanting to get him the sack.”
BBC Post-Match Interview with Clint Dempsey
Is Ray Lewington someone you like working with?
Yeah, definitely. I like it with him and Billy. They’re good guys, positive, they like to get the ball and keep it on the ground and move it. Like a possession style of game – that suits me well. That’s what I love about football, that’s why I love playing it. I’m happy that they’re in charge and I’m just doing everything I can to help the team win.
If Ray was to get the job would that be a popular choice among the players?
I don’t know. I mean, it would suit me. I like those guys, like I said. I think it showed tonight that we played a better style of football under them because they give us a little bit more freedom and allow us as players to express ourselves – express ourselves a little bit more and when your able to do that you enjoy your football a lot more.
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
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?
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?
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
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.
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.
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