Kevin's Withdrawal Costs
Wish I'd spent today here
By Tom Bason
September 11 2010
The smallest incident can change a match. A mistimed tackle, a corner mistakenly given or an errant linesman's flag. Today, it was an injury to goal scorer Jelly Van Damme and the subsequent substitution decision. Maybe my emotions are running high, (I'm writing this while on the coach) but I firmly believe that the decision to bring Stephen Fletcher on at halftime cost us one, maybe three points.
The first half had gone okay. We weren't playing brilliantly, but Kevin Doyle
was excellent upfront and had fashioned a chance for Van Damme which he
clinically finished. Fulham's defence couldn't cope with Doyle. He won
virtually everything in the air and held the ball up brilliantly. Don't get me
wrong, we were slightly fortunate to go in at half time ahead as we struggled
to deal with the movement of Fulham's front four (more on that later) but
Fulham weren't creating chances and were being restricted to long range efforts
at goal which were being easily dealt with. At halftime it seemed three points
were within our grasp.
Then, only ten players ran out for the second half. No Van Damme. Must be
injured- the fact he's yet to finish a game is a worry in itself, but that's
for another day. Fletcher comes on, Matt Jarvis switches to the left and Doyle
drops back to the right side of midfield. All of a sudden we are struggling to
keep the ball upfront. It goes up to Fletcher and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, it comes
straight back into our half. Doyle isn't a midfielder. Fulham's midfield now
have space to play. Within four minutes its 1-1. Now we're the team struggling,
and in all honesty, Fulham deserved the win. This isn't a rant at Fletcher, he
worked hard and looked industrious but he isn't Kevin Doyle. Why take our best
player, playing in his best position who's just had his best 45 minutes of the
season? At that stage, I'd rather have seen Wayne Hennessey come on for Van
Damme or even, God forbid, George Elokobi. Anyone but Doyle.
And then Doyle's taken off. It's clear we are getting beaten in the middle of
the park. Something needs to change. Doyle's taken off for David Jones. The
right player coming on, the wrong player going off. But by this time the
momentums lost. The suns come out and Fulham’s players are starting to enjoy
themselves. Aside from a couple of counter attacks initiated by Jarvis we
struggled to keep the ball. Arlene Guedioura was introduced to help with this,
but to no avail. Berra’s sent off, and we've lost 2-1 with a last minute goal.
Finally, a word on Fulham's formation. They started with Bobby Zamora as a
focal point with Mousa Dembele and Clint Dempsey buzzing around him. Danny
Murphy pulled the strings from a deep midfield position while Dickson Etuhu was
a typical midfield enforcer up and down the pitch. Simon Davies offered natural
width down the right hand flank. After Zamora went off (as I write this I hear
news he's broken his leg, I'd like to offer him my best wishes and I hope he's
back playing soon), they initially lacked cohesion upfront but were very
impressive once they'd got it sorted. Dembele and Dempsey were nominally
upfront, but both played as false nines, dropping back into midfield allowing
Zoltan Gera (Zamora's replacement) and Simon Davies to run behind our defence
into the vacated space. With no out and out striker, and Davies and Gera
playing narrowly our defence never seemed entirely sure who they should be
marking and as a result struggled to win the ball back. It was no surprise when
Fulham scored their winner.
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McCarthy can say about the defensive mistakes and I totally agree with him but I think this decision had more significance and was a major factor in us losing the game. A like for like substitution could have been more appropriate.
Bringing Fletcher on for Van Damme was not the brightest of moves and it seems to me that McCarthy must be feeling pressure to field his big summer signing. Guedioura would have been a better shout as a replacement for Van Damme at that stage. We needed to keep things tight for 15 minutes at the start of the 2nd half but handed them a goal and the the initiative with an unbalanced team.
Another bad decision was taking Ebanks-Blake off for Guedioura when by that stage Jarvis had clearly run out of steam. Both our away games have now been in the "game of two halves" category.
The thing that really annoyed me was McCarthy's inability to change it. I'm sure whether it was stubbornness or pure tactical naivety from him but it was obvious after a few minutes that it wasn't working. One of McCarthy's first comments on the Fletcher signing was that he was happy out wide. Why didn't he swap Fletch and Doyle around so Doyle was back upfront?
toomb's twitter
I thought Gera made a big difference to Fulham when he came on, - perhaps irritated by getting the bird from our fans as soon as he appeared - I thought he was industrious and canny in his play, and caused us real problems, some of which led to some of our bookings!
toomb's twitter
Rough notes=-
Hahnemann - Safe hands but his kicking seemed a bit awry today.
Foley - ok.
Craddock - great in the air, just as well.
Berra - Not good. Exposed for lack of pace and resorting to shirt pulling and trips.
Ward - Poor today. Not closing down their forwards.
Jarvis - very good. Showed a clean pair of heels to their defenders. I felt sorry for him that after getting down the line on a couple of occasions in the second half, he crossed into the penalty area and there was no Wolves player to be seen.
Henry - No more Mr.Nice Guy. However just as much sinned against as sinning.
Mancienne - Good quick footwork, but too lightweight and got muscled off the ball too easily.
Van Damme - Excellent. Showed determination and skill and took his goal well. I can only assume he was substituted due to an injury. He did take a hard tackle earlier on.
Doyle - The classiest player on the pitch. Very difficult to shake off the ball. Again I assume he had a injury twinge hence his substitution.
Seb - Ran his socks off but to no avail. Only one half chance.
Fletcher - Looked classy, but was never given the ammunition by the midfield. Ball control very good.
Jones - A bit of a disappointment. Tended to get lost.
Guedoura - I wish he had had more time on the field.
player to be seen
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