Ratings vs Fulham

[werty]

Lloris 5 - Fell on his arse for their goal instead of spreading himself, although I doubt he would have gotten to it. Spilt an easy cross in the first half. Came off his line well once.

Naighton 6 - Alright. Didn't get forward enough
Dawson 6 - Didn't have much to do when he was there
Caulker 6 - Was one of our best attacking players. Think he might have done better to cut out the cross for the goal, but I might be being to harsh
Verthongen 6 - Beaten too easily in the build up.

Siggy 5 - Control left him down a couple of times and he wasn't in the game. In fairness, he was out of position
Dembele 5 - Too slow in possession and his passing wasn't great
Parker 5 - Ditto, but worse passing
BAE 4 - Not a LM and at times it looked like he wasn't a LB either

Bale 5 - Too greedy in the first half when he had chances to cross but went for goal. Was much too deep in the second.
Adebayor 5 - At least he tried a bit. Service was shit, but so was his movement.

Dempsey 4 - Lost the ball most of the time
Defoe 5 - Should have scored at the end. At least he tested the keeper twice.
Carroll 6 - Some nice passes, some not so nice. Lack of movement in front of him didn't help

AVB 3 - Shit selection from the start (BAE isn't a LM and Siggy isn't a RM). His subs were poor too and had little impact on the game.
Fans 4 - Some were moaning from the beginning when passes were going astray. Got much worse in the second when the team needed to be backed.

 

[Jimmypearce7]

Im not voting, they were all awful.

 

[Francis Gibbs]

None above a 4 so not worth rating

 

[mano-obe]

I would have preferred bale to move to the wing early on as we weren't creating much at all.

No one really impressed me apart from Carroll. We weren't at the races today.

Bale, ade, Defoe, ekottos body language didn't look right today. Hope everything is good at the camp

Ny news on bales injury? Seemed to struggle

 

[mpickard2087]

WARNING: This isn't going to be a very positive post, so delicate little souls should stop reading now.

That was fucking abysmal really. Some of the players looked like they were feeling the effects of extra time on Thursday, but there should have been no excuses for the insipedness that was that game. Fulham did nothing spectacular, sat back and tried to defend for the most part and were happy to let us have the ball, yet we rarely looked like threatening.

Firstly, I thought AVB's tactics again didn't work today. He tinkered, maybe logically in some cases, but it just showed how unbalanced the squad is particularly in the wide areas. Ekotto, contrary to the views of a lot on here, isn't that great at attacking and is in no way a left winger. That side was only ever going to be solid, and offering crosses from deep as neither can really go past a man. Sigurdsson on the right was never going to work, the guy is weak and slow, face it. The only place he ever has a chance of success is on the left, because he has some space to play with and can cut in on his right foot. Behind him, Naughton is steady but not going to bomb on, so we effectively had no width.

Ok... so no width, maybe not a problem if you can pass and move and open up teams through the centre. But when did we last see this, Arsenal game (and their helpful defending) aside? We have a number of players who simply do not understand that they need to make better runs and open up possibilities for the man on the ball. If we did make good options though, we have a group of players that just aren't quite technically good enough for the very highest level. They take a touch too many, make a poor choice or just don't see the pass. We aren't going to pass through teams, so why AVB thinks it's ok to sacrifice any width is beyond me, I know we lack options but it wasn't as if he had nothing at all to play with, we never look very good when we set up that way.

I'm also surprised we kept Bale on, he was clearly fucked and couldn't sprint, barely jogging around with the ball and resorting to trying to hit the ball into the box from desperate angles. Whilst it may not have been akin to playing with 10 men, it wasn't far off. He was barely out there.

Parker and Dembele, the crucial engine room, looked predictably knackered today. He should have changed one of them and tried to freshen it up from the start. They were below par today. Credit for the Carroll change, but it was too late by then.

All in all, that wasn't a fine day from AVB in my opinion.

Next, I just have some general observations about our play. I'm not basing this on one game, these are things that I regularly see happen and although some may seem small, they often lead back to a much bigger problem. I've held my tongue on some of this, and I will probably get shot down for being ultra critical, but I'm putting it out there anyway.

- Passing and movement. Its a standard thing for me to pull our team up on, but it has be to be done. Its woeful, players offer either no run at all, or an absolutely useless option about two yards away from the player. Literally no one is capable of finding any space and so there is absolutely no depth to our play at all.

However, we could be the most fluid team ever, with multiple options each time for the man with the ball, and I still wouldn't bet on us going anywhere. Our passing and technique is for the most part absolutely rotten for the level we claim and want to be at. Even the simplest of things like passing it ahead of the player so he can run onto it is a struggle for a lot of our players, because most end up behind him and any chance of momentum goes. If you think I'm exaggerating, please I beg you to record a match and watch the 90 mins. I guarantee you will see as I describe.

Then there is the obsession with passing the ball backwards, we seem to have no urgency to go forwards at times. Players should be able to take the ball on the turn and so be going forwards. Yes I know I have whinged about lack of movement, but sometimes there are options and for no logical reason at all we turn and pass it back home. That is one thing that Carroll did show today, literally the only one that can take the ball on the half turn, and so opens up more options and allows him to move the ball quicker. He put some of them to shame today in this aspect.

Another thing that drives me mental is someone under pressure giving the ball to someone and that player just fires it straight back at him (Mr Parker, I'm looking at you). Can someone tell me what the fuck that achieves?


- Organisation/Communication

This is something I have mentioned before, but I keep on seeing players making stupid decisions when if they talked to each other it would make the game so much simpler. The goal today was caused by two men (Vertonghen and Dembele) going for the same ball and then both getting totally mugged off. We see this a lot, why don't they communicate, one to the ball and one track the runner. My Sunday League team can do this. Why can't a Premier League team?

You can also see this with the amount of times that a player rushes a clearance when under no pressure and just gifts the ball back to the oppostion, when a simple call would let him no he has time and can bring it down and try to do something constructive with it. Its not exactly rocket science.

Oh whilst on that vaguely related point, someone needs to have them out on the training ground practising cushioned headers. I mean it. The amount of times we attempt one and it goes badly wrong is totally amateur. Again, no joke I think my Sunday League team could do better!


So its a contrast. Some of these things need work on the training ground, better technique and appreciation of the need for better movement requires a real education of the players and maybe bringing in others or promoting youth players more comfortable with the style of play that AVB wants. This will be a work in progress we have to accept. Other stuff I have mentioned above like Leadership, organisation and communication can be worked on and fixed short term. I just hope it gets identified. We are on the whole a much more disciplined unit this season, but maybe some of these obscure things are missed, but lots of little things add up to a bigger thing and hopefully then in games make things a bit simpler for ourselves.


Ratings:

Lloris 6 - Literally nothing to do, no chance with the goal.

Naughton 6 - Solid, not much else to write about though. He was maybe that half a yard away from Berbatov for the goal but it was on the other side where we got carved open and the fault lies.

Dawson - Fuck all to do before he went off apart from shift the ball around a bit.

Caulker 6 - I wouldn't blame him for the goal, he kinda had to go across a bit when the guy got put into acres of space. What can I say, played some simple passes thats about it. Our defence wasn't that troubled.

Vertonghen 5 - Would blame him for the goal however. Him and Dembele made a right pigs ear of it. Mugged off.

Ekotto 6 - Lost at left mid. Left back he didn't do much either.

Parker 5 - Getting the ball under control seemed a real struggle for him today. Not very effective. Chief culprit when I talk of people making utterly pointless availability for the ball. Eg. Counted four times, there are probably more, where centre back A has the ball, can shift it out to other centre back B. Parker runs back and puts himself between the two and takes the ball, then dawdles and eventually ball goes to centre back B. What the fuck does this achieve!?

Dembele 5 - Ditto on effectiveness. One of the players who on occasion plays a progressive pass or manages to find space, but you tend to think it is a fluke judging by how little he does it. Another game where he asn't covered himself in glory for a goal conceded.

Sigurdsson 4 - Totally anonymous. The left hand side role is the only chance we have of getting something effective from him. Weak and slow.

Bale - Before injury he didn't exactly look up for it. Bottled a few challenges and didn't get into the game nor work particularly hard. After that half hour you can't really say anything so won't give a rating. Tried to hobble around. As I said, AVB should have brought him off in my opinion.

Adebayor 5.5 - He got woeful, pretty much non existent service for the most part, so I don't know what people are expecting. Not really any threat on goal but his link up play was pretty good and he made two, possible three clever passes that found a Spurs player in space in the penalty box that they wasted (Vertonghen first half was one). Good workrate first half but then faded out of the game as it went on.

Subs:

Dempsey - Laughable contribution.

Defoe - Even more laughable with that virtually open goal miss.

Carroll - Not sure of a rating, probably 6.5, but general thoughts are that he came on and did well. At least tried to show some intelligent decision making and nearly a great bit of play to put in Bale after beating a couple of men and then the through ball. Yes he did try to force it a few times, but thats to be expected, you learn with experience. Most pleased to see his general technique, taking the ball on the half turn and making more time and space for himself. How I wish some of the others could do this. Well done kid. You deserve more chances based on today.

 

[stov]

Avb at fault today. No width, the game was crying out for bale on the left but he was moved to the right. Bae was playing left wing/centre midfield why...?

No movement at all apart from tom. I was in the oap east stand and the 80 year olds were getting riled up can't imagine the anger in the park lane

 

[only1waddle]

still awaiting the entrance of BC

 

[ravo]

It frustrates the shit out of me that people say Ade worked hard. Big fucking deal. It matters not. He's a fucking striker, not a left winger or CM. He seems clueless when it comes to doing his job, and he's one of (if not the) highest paid players in the squad. A couple of times today, there were great balls played across the area by Verts and he was rooted to the penalty spot. That is not a fucking striker. Woeful. Pav would have been better today, and that's saying something.

Dempsey was even worse - clueless. AVB should have played Siggi on the left (as it has been working lately), Bale in the middle and either Holtby or Dembele on the right. He could even have gievn Carroll a start (although that's probably taking it a bit too far). BAE left wing was a bad idea.

We can all dream of a new, half decent striker... but will it ever happen?

 

[Syn_13]

It frustrates the shit out of me that people say Ade worked hard. Big fucking deal. It matters not. He's a fucking striker, not a left winger or CM. He seems clueless when it comes to doing his job, and he's one of (if not the) highest paid players in the squad. A couple of times today, there were great balls played across the area by Verts and he was rooted to the penalty spot.

I didn't see the game today but I agree with you about Adebayor. He is woeful right now. I remember when watching us play in one of the Europa League games recently (might have been home to Inter) and the commentator was saying how running about a bit and trying to chase the ball down is only half the job. You can do that as much as you like but what really counts is what you do when you get the ball. Sure, he can influence things when off the ball, like a good run that drags his marker away (Bale's goal against Arsenal), but that's not done often enough and right now when he gets the ball you can pretty much guarantee that nothing good is going to come of it.

I don't mind if he isn't scoring a shit load of goals, some strikers are more effective at bringing others into play. Last year he got a fair few goals but not a prolific amount, but he was getting plenty of assists for a lone striker and brought others into play. He just lacks the ability to do anything with the ball and I don't think it's a technical issue, he has some skill in him, I think it's purely a negative frame of mind.

 

[stov]

I kept thinking why is ade playing on the left wing but when defoe came on he did seem to tell ade to move to the left. If that was the instruction AVB has gone mental or Defoe is giving duff instructions so he gets all the chances

 

[only1waddle]

I kept thinking why is ade playing on the left wing but when defoe came on he did seem to tell ade to move to the left. If that was the instruction AVB has gone mental or Defoe is giving duff instructions so he gets all the chances

Ade got the famous post it note instruction from the bench.. he stared at it for some time...

 

[OmarsComing]

still awaiting the entrance of BC

Spoiler

 

[stevenqoz]

A team running on empty today. Move on.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

The well is running dry.

A performance like this has been on the cards IMO. You just cannot stretch a squad our slim on quality on so many important games in such a short space of time. With the last game before this one an emotionally and physically draining 120mins away in Milan.

I have no problem with the initial tactics AVB employed or the team he picked. We just looked mentally and physically fatigued today. Devoid of energy, spent.

It manifested itself most notably in our poor movement off the ball. All day long people in possession had no options.

I have a huge problem with the next two changes AVB made though. Even if Dawson was injured, the introduction of Dempsey just added more gormlessness to an already idea devoid performance. Surely the fresh legs and brain of Holtby would have been a better option. He compounded this poor decision by taking off Sigurdsson and Dembele. We now had four forwards and no-one on the pitch to create anything for them.

Personally, if Dawson was injured, I'd have put Carroll on and pushed Dembele further forward to run at the defence. Or played a 3 man cm with Dembele and Carroll operating either side of Parker.

The "get all the forwards on" panic moves were reminiscent of AVB's opposite number in the dugout today. It never worked then either.

This was a day when there were no positives to take. Fulham were pretty poor. AVB's second half tactics were pretty poor. The team looked absolutely devoid of ideas. And two more international games and travelling for most in the next few days isn't going to help.

Tough times ahead. We will need to dig very deep. And some of our spades aren't exactly Spear & Jackson.

Individual ramblings:

Lloris - Hardly anything to do but saved 2-0 with a smart dash of his line.

Naughton - OK.

Vertonghen - Tried hard.

Dawson - OK before he went off.

Caulker - OK

Ekotto - Meh. Not sure he defended very well for the goal but need to see it again.

Parker - Looked tired but keeps plugging away.

Dembele - mediocre performance.

Sigurdsson - worked hard off the ball, didn't contribute enough offensively though.

Bale - Poor for the most part. Needs to work harder on the creative side, he can't score every time he gets the ball, needs to get his head up, realise he's drawn players to him and he can't always run round 6 players, and play a pass to someone in a better position.

Adebayor - I thought he worked hard off the ball today and continually pressed the defenders. He also worked the channels a bit better today. But didn't get a sniff of a chance as we didn't create any.

Dempsey - A dire footballer who if he at least was a pest off the ball you could find, not exactly a silver lining, but at least a cheap tatty imitation of brass, but watch what he does for their goal. Just fucking ambles along with their right back and allows him time and space and then a run up the line.

 

[double0]

Ratings without marks...isn't on.

 

[Gedson100]

It is weird though. When it turns to shit, we suddenly remember that we haven't got a creative player in the squad and Tom Carroll, bless his little cotton socks, is now being put forward as a very viable alternative. Jesus wept! (I like Tom, but come on, he's hardly gonna drive us to the CL)

I'm concerned though because once the malaise sets in, it's hard to shift.
AVB has made the odd strange decision, like when he played Bale at left back some while ago for a half, but today's line up is crazy. As soon as I saw the team, I knew we were in trouble. Inter was an aberration, but prior to that, if it ain';t broke don't try and fix it. Minimum changes from the team that lined up against Liverpool was the order of the day with an international break coming up. Now we've got Walker most likely with the hump, Holtby must be regretting shagging AVB's missus (joke!), Benny's a winger, Siggy's settles in then gets shunted across the park and Scott Parker will play forever.
It's just comically inept. 2 bad results and it seems like his head's gone. I HOPE I AM WRONG!

 

[scat1620]

Ratings without marks...isn't on.

Nah, disagree with that. Numbers aren't half as good a way of putting your point across than a good description of your opinion. In the same way that Mark Kermode doesn't need to give a film a rating out of 5 stars for you to have a bloody good idea of whether he thinks the film is any good or not. Even when I think BC is talking twaddle (not so often these days), I get a far better idea of what he's thinking by just reading his posted opinions rather than assigning arbitrary numbers (which don't allow for shades of nuance) to the quality of players' performances.

 

[dannythomas]

My own opinion is AVB had better decide if the Europa League is really important and if it is then play our strongest team not leaving half of them out and choosing the other half who then have to cover for the inadequacies of the crap players like Friedel Gallas and Livermore. Result is that players like Dembele are totally knackered for the next match. If we had gone with our best available side against Inter then we would have been seen off easily and that wouldnt have happened.
Alternatively if we should focus 100% on somehow staying in the top 4 and choose our reserves to playin the Europa.
We all know that Levy failed to do what was needed in January . In addition to a striker we clearly needed another DM because Parker is done as we saw at the end of last season. Anyway it is what it is but the matches against Inter and Fulham again raise questions about AVB's tactical decision making.
Today's starting line up with BAE in MF, Sig RM and Caulker at CB followed by the baffling persistence of keeping Bale at RM while having Dempsey, Defoe and Ade on the pitch at the same time were ludicrous. Also I'm afraid I don't share the enthusiasm for Carroll. I think he flattered to deceive with some "almost but not quite " through balls.if Bale was too injured to be effective why was he still on the pitch? And with Lennon out why go with Naughton at RB when Walker for whatever his defensive clangers t least offers something going forward ?
A starting line up of Lloris, Walker , Dawson ( if fit ) Verts, BAE , Holtby, Parker, Dembele, Sig, Bale, plus any one of Defoe,Ade or Dempsey ( they are all equally shit ) would have been our best option with Lennon out . In other words Holtby for Lennon without reshuffling our entire formation.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

It is weird though. When it turns to shit, we suddenly remember that we haven't got a creative player in the squad and Tom Carroll, bless his little cotton socks, is now being put forward as a very viable alternative. Jesus wept! (I like Tom, but come on, he's hardly gonna drive us to the CL)

I'm concerned though because once the malaise sets in, it's hard to shift.
AVB has made the odd strange decision, like when he played Bale at left back some while ago for a half, but today's line up is crazy. As soon as I saw the team, I knew we were in trouble. Inter was an aberration, but prior to that, if it ain';t broke don't try and fix it. Minimum changes from the team that lined up against Liverpool was the order of the day with an international break coming up. Now we've got Walker most likely with the hump, Holtby must be regretting shagging AVB's missus (joke!), Benny's a winger, Siggy's settles in then gets shunted across the park and Scott Parker will play forever.
It's just comically inept. 2 bad results and it seems like his head's gone. I HOPE I AM WRONG!

I actually think the starting choices were OK Jair, given who was available. Walker won't get the hump, he'll know he's had a "rest" coming for a long long time. He's been continually making huge mistakes defensively and just doesn't offer enough offensively to compensate. he needs to get his shit together.

It was the subs that I think were poor. Dempsey just should not be on a pitch in a shirt competing at the top of the EPL. He is a lazy, talentless ****. He is a one man malaise.

Holtby's energy and ability to move the ball quickly, I think, would have been much more use.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

On the plus side we saw something many of us had been hoping to see from Carroll, the ability to drop a shoulder and carry the ball past a marker. Nice little sequence in their today.