Fanzine Fanzone - Times Online - WBLG

Fulham: we haven't reached our peak yet

 

Nick MacManus

Fulham’s upcoming season looks to be their biggest challenge yet in the top flight of English Football as they prepare to fight on two fronts, Europe and the Premier League, for the first time since 2002-03.

Let's not forget what an achievement it has been to reach this position. On the April 26, 2008 Fulham looked doomed to relegation. 2-0 down at half-time to Manchester City, the tears were flowing in the away end as the Fulham faithful watched their team seemingly roll over and die. A historic comeback followed and we have not looked back since. It is a crucial time in Fulham’s history and whilst the times ahead will be testing, on the other hand they offer immense opportunities.

Bobby Zamora: an enigma

Bobby Zamora.  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in another enigma, and fired miles over the crossbar.  Our number nine has played most of the season, part of one of Fulham's best ever teams, but he still can't convince fans of his value. 

Fulham: Hodgson's choice

 

Patrick Barclay's question about Roy Hodgson's future has provoked much discussion.  My own view is that Hodgson now finds himself at a crossroads, and we can't really know which road he'll take.

We must always be careful of reading too much into individuals' characters from an outsider's position, but Roy Hodgson seems to have his head screwed on to an extent rarely seen in football.  His post-match interviews are joyous: you'll never hear him blame a referee, court controversy, or behave in anything other than a gentlemanly way.  He understands that football is a random game: you can play well and get nothing and play badly and get something, and this happens far more often than the media or fans care to admit.  Hodgson understands this, prepares his team to play "the right way" and trusts results to follow from this, if not every week, then most weeks, or enough weeks. 

He is at the club with the best stadium in the league, a stadium that sells out frequently and has - so far - to turn on him.  Some nasty words came his way after we lost to Sunderland at home last year, but at this point we looked doomed and people got angry.  But in the cold light of day they'd have blamed Lawrie Sanchez for relegation, not Roy.  No, he is loved, respected, and a very good fit for the club.  And the club seems to be a very good fit for him.  Somehow the whole situation seems right.  We couldn't imagine it any other way.

He has also fashioned a decent team from not much.  Mark Schwarzer is hardly playing for free, but didn't cost us anything to buy.  John Paintsil, arguably the world's best right-back, was a throw in in the Bobby Zamora transfer.  Paul Konchesky and Aaron Hughes were inherited from Sanchez, and have been very good. Brede Hangeland didn't cost much and is one of the best centre-backs in the league.  Danny Murphy is a new (and very good player) under Hodgson.  Dickson Etuhu cost little but has already grown into a decent midfielder, and one who could keep getting better.  Simon Davies was already here but is a neat, unfussy footballer who can be relied on to do his job.  Clint Dempsey had to wait for his chance, but has taken it like a man possessed.  Andy Johnson and Bobby Zamora cost serious money by Fulham standards, but their selfless attitude and work-rate has almost destracted people from looking too closely at their goals tally this year.  

This is Roy Hodgson's team.  There's not a moaner amongst them, they're all good, honest professionals who work hard and play well.  The squad feels like work in progress; it feels like we could be on the verge of something.  But we need Hodgson to see it through. 

He might not if the rug gets pulled from under him.  If our beloved Chairman decides that there's no spare money to use for squad improvements, if Brede Hangeland is sold but not replaced, this might well irk Hodgson.  Maybe he might look at the big four, at Man City's money, at Spurs, Villa, Everton, and wonder where the scope for improvement is in this Fulham side.  Can we get past that group?  Possibly, possibly not, but realistically keeping Fulham in mid-table all season is quite an accomplishment.  I can see why some might suggest that we've gone as far as we can.

Roy Hodgson felt wronged by his dismissal at Blackburn.  He gave up a good job at Inter to come back to England, and felt that he deserved more time than he got.  So when Fulham approached him, surely he saw an opportunity to rebuild a reputation that had been wrongly compromised.  He has done that and respect is now almost universal.   Whether we like it or not, he will soon have options, exciting options.

We cannot know what Roy Hodgson is thinking:

Does he enjoy bringing on unheralded talent to a new level?  Does he love the special Fulham ambiance enough to stay here for a long time? 

Or does he yearn to win big trophies?  Does he look at Guus Hiddink and see a road untraveled?   If PSG or Bayern Munich or AC Milan or Real Madrid, or any other underachieving giant were to call, could he resist that?   What if Raymond Domenech is fired?  What if Fabio Capello jacks it all in?  Hodgson would surely be on all decent shortlists at this point. 

None of us knows.  We all hope he sticks around, because he feels like part of the club and Fulham really wouldn't be the same without him, but this is football and anything could happen.

Fulham: It's about the "moments"

Liverpool are next for Fulham at The Cottage.  As ever, it'll be about the "moments".  We need not fear Liverpool.  After all, look what happened last time a big club came to SW6...

(bit of an experiment follows)

Fulham: Danny Murphy - the best midfielder in the league

If last season was a stormy voyage at sea (a voyage we barely survived, thanks to Captain Hodgson's shrewd work at the wheel) then this has been a quiet June picnic on a Tuesday afternoon.  Occasionally we have been bothered by ants in the jam, clouds hobbling before the sun and small children making bad noise, but overall this has been a season to enjoy, rather than endure.  And if that's a bad metaphor or two too many, well sod it.  Life is good on Stevenage Road.

Fulham: the state of play

As ever, little to report on planet Fulham.  The side continues to run along like a seven year old Renault Clio, doing its job without fuss or excitement, but (if you look closely) with a little je ne sais quoi at the same time (increasingly from the golden boots of Captain Murphy).  A lot of us wanted a quiet season after the 2007/08 nonsense, and Roy's team has obliged.  We're 8th now, and will have to undergo the mother of all collapses to ruin things from here.

It has been a half-tricky 2009, not least because we've spent a lot of it playing away from home.  Roy dons his Italian hat for away matches and attempts to strangle games to death.  It hasn't worked especially well lately, but this barely matters because we're doing so well at Craven Cottage that we can dust off the old 'fortress' cliches again and watch those points mount up.  This disparity - pound for pound we're the best home side in the division, but also among the worst away sides - lends itself to "if only" analysis: "if only" we were even average away from home, why we'd be fourth by now," but this is asking a hell of a lot given last year's narrow escape, and maybe this is what Roy has planned for next season anyway.

Roy Hodgson clearly knows what he's doing, and the fact that it's not clear to us why we have to be so timid away doesn't mean it isn't correct.  Everyone got upset when we donated three points to Man Utd on Wednesday without breaking a sweat, but then we could very easily have put seven past West Brom on the Sunday, so you have to say that Hodgson's approach to the two games was fair enough in the final analysis.

Especially given that we have to play Wales' answer to Brazil 1970 in the FA Cup tonight. I'm quaking with fear.  Swansea didn't look *that* good to me in the first game, but the ITV crew were overwhelmed at what they saw, and I defer to their greater salaries.  It'll be a chilly evening by the Thames but I'm looking forward to a cracking match. 

Finally, over the last year I spent a fair bit of time praising Jimmy Bullard, and some time criticising Frank Lampard too.  We won't discuss the former, whose fishing career is now being sponsored by Hull City, but a quick word for the latter: as best I can tell he's been superb lately, massively impressive when his team came to the Cottage (and found no way to stop Clint Dempsey).  What an irony then, that in the form of his life, he isn't picked for the England side, having been selected through thick and thick for years.   

Fulham: Everything you wanted to know about our window experience but were afraid to ask

We suspect that Roy Hodgson would rather do nothing than something that he hasn’t thought through in detail, so Fulham's relative inactivity was no great surprise.  However, there were still several very exciting transactions to talk about:

Fulham: an imaginary story about famous people

Prologue: If Angelina Jolie left Brad Pitt to shack up with Russell Brand a few eyebrows might be raised. Not that there’s anything wrong with Russell Brand, but it’s not a direction anyone would have expected Ms Jolie to take.

*****

Chapter 1:  One morning in January, Angelina left Brad.   One can imagine how all this might have come about:

“I’m going to leave you, Brad. You don’t love me enough.”
“Of course I love you.”
“Well prove it.”
“Prove it? We’re married? We’re together all the time. I’ve stuck by you through all the difficult times. Those times when you thought you were pretty damn important. That Africa business. The UN. If I’m honest I think that went to your head.   You started acting like frickin' Bono!  But that’s not germane. We’re happy.  We’re doing okay, Ang. What more do you want?”
(Angelina pretends to pass out)

*****

Chapter 2:  To those close to the couple the signs had been there for a while, but to Heat readers all over the world this came as a huge surprise.   What to make of it all?????  Angelina Jolie and Russell Brand!!!!  Maybe she did want more love than Brad could provide, but did she really think she’d be happy with Russell Brand?  Yes, Brand was famous at the moment, would give her all the love he had, give her freedom to go where she wanted, and not insist that she clean up after herself... but is all that worth uprooting a young family for?

*****

Chapter 3:  Could Brad have done more to stop this?  Undoubtedly he could. But the nagging suspicion remains that he didn’t really want Angelina around anymore.  It had been great at first, and his friends loved her, but in time her need for attention, her grandiose ideas, her increasingly disruptive influence behind the scenes at the country club... well, it’s not what Brad was about.  Sure he’d miss her - this is Angelina Jolie we're talking about after all, one of the finest dames in Hollywood - but there would be other women out there, women who might sometimes listen to him, maybe once in a while do what he wanted her to do, and most importantly, just shut the frick up once in a while.  No, Brad would be alright.

*****

Ends.

Back to the real world.  We've sold Jimmy Bullard to Hull.  Who saw that coming?  He'll be a good player for them, but at that money and for that length of contract it's the sort of gamble you want other teams to take.  He played 39 fun-packed games for us, and we probably wouldn't have stayed up without him, but his performances this season haven't been as good as the media like to think and there's a good chance we'll be fine without him (Simon Davies in particular seems to be a far better player without Bullard in the side).   Good luck, Jim, and thanks for all the memories.

Fulham: TV Burp! Kettering v Fulham is scandalously ignored

The FA Cup 4th round TV games have been decided and Fulham's trip to Kettering isn't one of them.  Instead we get:

Derby v Forest

I accept this one.  The Nigel Clough factor only adds to what should be a ripsnorting tie.  Fair enough.

Hartlepool v West Ham

You what?  Granted, few of us have had a chance to watch Hartlepool in great detail, and indeed this is the main attraction of the tie, but do we really need to see this game?  I accept that Millwall are also going to the North West in this round (to play Newcastle), but you can still move kick-offs without putting the games on telly.  Will West Ham even have a proper team by then?  Perhaps they told ITV they'd play for half price.  No, to me this is a watered down version of Kettering v Fulham.  The nation deserves the real thing.

Cardiff v Arsenal

Fine.  Misfiring Arsenal v last year's runner up.  It's an accident waiting to happen for Arsenal, so should make for riveting television.

Liverpool v Everton

Okay.  I don't think the world needs to see these two at it, but it's a cup tie, a proper derby, two good, proper teams with bearable managers, so yeah, it should be a good game.

Manchester United v Spurs

It's 3rd plays 16th!  Wooooooooo!  What a terrible selection.  Even if you dress this up as BATTLE OF THE BERBATOV: THE WORLD CHAMPIONS V THE MILK CUP HOLDERS: THE FINAL ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN it doesn't sound much more interesting.  Yes, you have the famous shiny players, but choosing this game is like all those bland bookshops trying to attract christmas punters with Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver books; wrong product, wrong people, wrong all over.  Yes it might make money, but... oh, what's the use.

Kettering Town v Fulham

Isn't on.  What game better embodies what the FA Cup is supposed to be about?  Setanta have been doing patronising adverts featuring postmen and professionals all season; isn't this their dream tie?   You've got a Premier League team that is becoming a neutral favourite (Fulham) away to a plucky non-league outfit (they're always plucky).   Kettering's manager is a formerly reviled Fulham player if you want a grudge angle.  Fulham's manager is on the shortlist for Future King of the World if you want the feelgood factor.  What's not to like?  Even in a worst case scenario where Fulham win 8-0 you get to see some goals.  More likely it'll be a tight one, decided by a bad bounce or maybe even something very rare like a Bobby Zamora goal. 

And it'd be a fun game.  It's the Cup, people, the Cup.  Do we really need to see Man Utd v Spurs?

No. There will be about 800 away tickets for us and it won't be enough.  Kettering could probably sell out twice over.  And the nation would probably quite want to watch it on TV.  Bah.   

Fulham: boring our way up the table

Fulham: Last on Match of the Day for the fourth time in a row!  Are we that boring?  It depends what you are looking for.

In this country we are rightly proud of our chaotic football league.  This season's unpredictability has only added to that fun.  If you watch enough matches you can be sure of seeing a handful of end-to-end thrillers, people losing their rags, people losing their rags even more in response, people making bad tackles, people running really fast, and sometimes even some good football.  What we don't get too excited about is the cerebral side of the game, the tactical battle.  English fans, journalists, and managers have never really got involved in that.  Roll your sleeves up, get stuck in:  who wants it more?

And so on.  The trouble comes when this approach to football runs its course.  What happens when both teams want it 100%?  What Roy Hodgson has done at Fulham is create a tactically sound framework on which to build an English football team.  So while our players do usually want it 100% (Jimmy Bullard sometimes wants it 110% but some people worried that Seol only wanted it about 30% when he was getting picked), we also have the knowledge that if our players do give their 100% we will probably not lose the match unless something odd happens.