Fulham down

[canarydan23 4,060]

I took a dislike to Fulham after our game against them at Carrow Road last season. I know everyone resorts to a bit of time-wasting, Tim Krul seems to have gotten it down to a fine art, but they took it to a new level. And then when married to their shameless diving and constant attempts to deceive the officials, I came away from that game with an anyone but Fulham approach to the playoffs. There fans on Twitter are among the oddest, most peculiar group I've encountered too. As it is, I'm delighted they went up because karma has bitten them back in a far more humourous way.

So, ha-f*cking-ha Fulham FC.

[westcoastcanary 173]

On 03/04/2019 at 00:46, CirclePoint said:

My only concern and I truly mean my only concern, is that we make too many mistakes in defense that we can get away with in the Championship. In this league we can make five defensive mistakes in a game and maybe be seriously troubled about three times and scored on once. In the PL we will be unequivocally punished three out of five times.

This ^  The stats have been saying it more or less throughout the season, and it's why we have always trailed Sheffield Utd and Leeds in the performance tables despite where we sit in the league table. It's the current version of the NCFC story from Lambert to Alex Neil.  It works in the Championship; it doesn't work in the EPL. 

[king canary 7,643]

34 minutes ago, westcoastcanary said:

This ^  The stats have been saying it more or less throughout the season, and it's why we have always trailed Sheffield Utd and Leeds in the performance tables despite where we sit in the league table. It's the current version of the NCFC story from Lambert to Alex Neil.  It works in the Championship; it doesn't work in the EPL. 

Lambert's 12th placed finish begs to differ.

[canarydan23 4,060]

I think Lambert's Premier season was an odd one. For sure, the dislike I now feel for him has probably had some influence on this opinion, but I genuinely think we would have been relegated had he stuck around.

When we were promoted under Lambert, no one gave us a prayer at staying up. Almost every away team visited Carrow Road expecting three points which inevitably led to gaps that our attack-minded approach could exploit, which got us a far few points.

Having then finished 12th, a trip to Carrow Road was suddenly a different proposition. Bar the big clubs, most teams would be satisfied coming away with a point (and arguably Hughton was still able to break down teams who came wanting the win, like Arsenal and Man Utd). Lambert's attacking philosophy would probably have been scuppered by more deep-lying teams and we would have struggled to get the goals. Hughton's more disciplined and defensive approach climbed us further up the table. I know you have to caveat that with the fact that, unlike under Lambert, our Premier League safety was still on the line with only a couple of games to go whereas Lambert had it sewn up weeks before, but the old adage that the league table does not lie after 38 games still stands, and we finished one place higher. It did all go south the next season for sure, but had Lambert not smelt greener pastures at Villa Park, we may not have still been in the Premier League for it to go south. A little off topic historical revisionism for you.

 

[king canary 7,643]

20 hours ago, canarydan23 said:

I think Lambert's Premier season was an odd one. For sure, the dislike I now feel for him has probably had some influence on this opinion, but I genuinely think we would have been relegated had he stuck around.

When we were promoted under Lambert, no one gave us a prayer at staying up. Almost every away team visited Carrow Road expecting three points which inevitably led to gaps that our attack-minded approach could exploit, which got us a far few points.

Having then finished 12th, a trip to Carrow Road was suddenly a different proposition. Bar the big clubs, most teams would be satisfied coming away with a point (and arguably Hughton was still able to break down teams who came wanting the win, like Arsenal and Man Utd). Lambert's attacking philosophy would probably have been scuppered by more deep-lying teams and we would have struggled to get the goals. Hughton's more disciplined and defensive approach climbed us further up the table. I know you have to caveat that with the fact that, unlike under Lambert, our Premier League safety was still on the line with only a couple of games to go whereas Lambert had it sewn up weeks before, but the old adage that the league table does not lie after 38 games still stands, and we finished one place higher. It did all go south the next season for sure, but had Lambert not smelt greener pastures at Villa Park, we may not have still been in the Premier League for it to go south. A little off topic historical revisionism for you.

 

Possibly.

But the only actual evidence we have is that Lamberts approach kept us up whereas Hughton's took us down. Swansea also played attacking football and didn't need to go defensive and disciplined to stay up. Bournemouth and Watford have shown you don't have to settle for grinding out 1-0 wins to stay up.

[canarydan23 4,060]

Hughton's approach also took us to our highest position in the football league pyramid in the past 26 years. He was unable to sustain it for a second season; I suspect Lambert would have done the same. We'll never know, but given the fact that he's been pony pretty much everywhere since 2012 and getting worse, I think it's a reasonably safe assumption.

And don't forget, Bournemouth and Watford also have backers enabling wage budgets that make ours look like child's pocket money.

[Fiery Zac 1,066]

I have a lot of respect and admiration for how Hughton went about things in his first season. It always felt like Lambert was scared for his own career by giving it another season with us and would’ve taken any PL job offered. It was then a massive change of philosophy  under Hughton, one that focused on organisation and defence. Bassong was a rock that season, not only with his last ditch tackling, aerial ability and pace but leading the back line and keeping it tight. We also still had Holt who (unlike RVW) could bend his style of play to still be able to score goals, goals that inevitably kept us up.

The issue came with the transfer window. It didn’t matter how organised we would be at the back, no replacement for Holt cost us our place in the PL. it wasn’t a disastrous season and I believe we weren’t often in the relegation zone but ultimately, lack of goals sunk us and proved the old saying ‘you’re only as good as your strikers’.

[king canary 7,643]

40 minutes ago, Fiery Zac said:

The issue came with the transfer window. It didn’t matter how organised we would be at the back, no replacement for Holt cost us our place in the PL. it wasn’t a disastrous season and I believe we weren’t often in the relegation zone but ultimately, lack of goals sunk us and proved the old saying ‘you’re only as good as your strikers’.

The strikers weren't all that but they were hamstrung by a manager who didn't have a clue how to set up a team to help them out. We didn't go down because strikers missed chances, we went down because we barely created any for them. Hooper showed he could find the net if given some help but every defeat just saw Hughton get more and more cautious and more and more defensive in his mindset until we basically stopped even trying to score.

You can still see it now with Brighton- their fans say they often seem to be set up to not even try to win the game. Farke found a balance after the turgid stuff of last season, Hughton never did.

[BigFish 1,988]

On 04/04/2019 at 10:13, westcoastcanary said:

This ^  The stats have been saying it more or less throughout the season, and it's why we have always trailed Sheffield Utd and Leeds in the performance tables despite where we sit in the league table. It's the current version of the NCFC story from Lambert to Alex Neil.  It works in the Championship; it doesn't work in the EPL. 

Your performance tables are wrong

[canarydan23 4,060]

Gary Hooper was never a Premier League striker. His record since that season plays testimony to that. Better recruitment up top and that season could have been so different. I'm not defending Hughton, he cost us our place in the Premier League, but that doesn't alter the fact that he did a good job in the previous season and doesn't change my opinion that the good job he did do was better, considerably, than the job Lambert would have done.

[Tetteys Jig 830]

24 minutes ago, BigFish said:

Your performance tables are wrong

Our high risk defensive strategy heavily skews those stats and is exactly why the odd clogger from Bolton gets above a 7 some weeks.

We ask a hell of a lot from our back 3 and inevitably they make mistakes. could be Ederson, VVd and Ramos back there and they would still make mistakes.

Each little error knocks their rating down too much in my view or at least all the good work with the risky passing out from the back isn't rewarded enough for their efforts.

It remains to be seen whether we would be able to continue with that sort of approach if we got promoted. Swansea showed it can be done though.

Both Hughton and Lambert were very much of the no nonsense CB type of managers though, especially hughton. It worked well for us really but then showed our shortcomings going forward eventually.

Like they say the best teams "Defend from the front" as we show with the work rate of Buendia, Pukki and Stiepermann especially, we also "Attack from the back" with our flying wing backs and ball playing centre backs and sweeper keeper. Yes we might concede the odd very silly looking goal like Hulls first the other day (and nearly one vs Boro) but I bet we have scored far more from this approach.

[westcoastcanary 173]

On 04/04/2019 at 10:48, king canary said:

Lambert's 12th placed finish begs to differ.

Yes and my old man smoked 80 a day from the age of 20 and lived to be 102. Are you going to follow his example king? 😉

[westcoastcanary 173]

6 hours ago, king canary said:

Swansea also played attacking football and didn't need to go defensive and disciplined to stay up. Bournemouth and Watford have shown you don't have to settle for grinding out 1-0 wins to stay up.

Nobody has said anything about having to settle for grinding out 1-0 wins. And nobody has said anything about "going all defensive". All CirclePoint was saying was that unless we improve defensively we will be punished in the EPL rather than getting away with it as currently in the Championship. 

Did we "go all defensive" in the great run we had from the home game against 'Boro up to Christmas? No! Were you grumbling about "grinding out 1-0 wins"? No! Did Klose and Leitner play virtually every game in that run? Yes! Were we defensively sounder than we have been without them in the team? Yes! 

Edited April 5, 2019 by westcoastcanary

[Indy 3,307]

The 6-0 capitulation of 2005 still on my mind, great day out, ****e result.

On a side note, I wouldn’t mind Mitrovic if available.

[Fiery Zac 1,066]

4 hours ago, king canary said:

The strikers weren't all that but they were hamstrung by a manager who didn't have a clue how to set up a team to help them out. We didn't go down because strikers missed chances, we went down because we barely created any for them. Hooper showed he could find the net if given some help but every defeat just saw Hughton get more and more cautious and more and more defensive in his mindset until we basically stopped even trying to score.

You can still see it now with Brighton- their fans say they often seem to be set up to not even try to win the game. Farke found a balance after the turgid stuff of last season, Hughton never did.

RVW, Hooper, Elmander, Becchio. None made any impression on the PL. Hughton’s still there.

[westcoastcanary 173]

6 hours ago, king canary said:

Farke found a balance after the turgid stuff of last season, Hughton never did.

Last season Farke found a balance that saw us finish mid-table; in the first half of this season he found a balance that saw us shoot up the table from 17th to 1st; since Christmas he has found a balance that has kept us in the top three and currently in pole position. In each case the balance has been different. The question is what balance he needs to find next season to maximise our chance of at least surviving in the EPL. CirclePoint's suggestion, which I agree with, is that the balance we have with Leitner and Klose in the team is nearer to what is needed than the current one.