The rise of Fulham

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Two players in the squad are having concerns - Bryan Ruiz and Kostas Stafylidis. I wanted to have a word with them. Before doing that, I wanted to have a chat with the entire team and called them for a team meeting before they went to train. They've been playing rather well off late and I wanted to tell them to keep up the performance.
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Individual Meetings:
Then I told Stafylidis to meet me in my office and told Ruiz to do the same 45 minutes later. Stafylidis has been a target for AC Milan and the Greek international wants to join them because of their big stature in Europe. I tried to reason with him, asking to stay but he didn't budge. I told him I'd accept a bid if AC Milan make one. He seemed to be in a better mood after I said that. ******* it..I don't want to lose my first choice left back but looks like I don't have much of a choice.
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My meeting with Stafylidis concluded and Ruiz was due in 5 minutes. He hasn't been getting first team chances off late because Baselli, Hyndman and de Vilhena have been doing exceedingly well in the advanced playmaker role when needed. The last time he came to me with this issue, I told him to be patient but he refused and became unhappy. So, I told him that I'd look to sell him on a transfer or send him out on loan for first team football. Yeovil made a loan offer for Ruiz and I relayed the information to Ruiz. He was willing to go out on loan for first team football.
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Unlucky with losing Stafylidis to AC Milan if they put in a bid but Ruiz to Yeovil haha
 
Did that just happen? Just look at the stats below. Sociedad had only 4 shots at goal and only one of them was on target. And they won 1-0. We had some really good chances but we couldn't score. Finnbogason had 3 opportunities to give us the lead but he hit the woodwork twice and shot narrowly wide once from about 8 yards.

Their goal came from a cross when Balanta misjudged the flight of the ball and Jorgensen was able to tap it home. It's very unlike Balanta to make a mistake like that. I'm gutted to be honest. This was a game we should have won. Oh well..time to move on.
 
A smash and grab from Sociedad! It's annoying, but happens in real life sometimes too mate! Good luck against PSG!
 
xJamieWilliams said:
A smash and grab from Sociedad! It's annoying, but happens in real life sometimes too mate! Good luck against PSG!
Click to expand...

I know. I've done it to some bigger clubs myself in this save as well. Football is a great leveller, isn't it. Atleast that's what I told myself, mainly for consolation. :P
 
Two hard fought victories

We started with confidence as I told the players to play without pressure. We pressed Tottenham hard and it finally paid off just before half time. We scored two in the ten minutes leading upto half time. Kacaniklic scored our first by making a smart and timely run into the box. Finnbogason doubled our lead by tapping in a lovely cross by Lustig from our right flank.

With the game approaching the final moments, Kranevitter made a foolish decision to tackle Eriksen inside our box when he was never going to reach the ball. Dembele scored the resulting penalty and the last five or so minutes were extremely nervous for us but we pulled through. 3 points at White Hart Lane.
Another away victory. But this was a tough one. Blackburn's fearless attacking performance brought the best out of our defense, especially Dan Burn. Roberts gave us the lead with a magnificent goal. The inside forward cut in from the right and curled one into the top corner from the edge of the box. Blackburn pushed hard and threatened us with some speedy attacks. But they ran into a determined Dan Burn who was absolutely faultless. He made several timely tackles to thwart Blackburn.

In the 51st minute, Baselli tried a 30 yard curler into the top corner, only for Jason Steele to pull off a brilliant save. So close to a fantastic goal for Baselli. The next 30 minutes or so were thrilling as both teams got close to scoring. But Roberts gave us some breathing space with 4 minutes left. He dribbled past three players and played in Cauley Woodrow through on goal. It was on a silver platter for Woodrow and he passed it into the net, giving us 3 points.
The League Table:
Chelsea are flying high. 8 wins out of 8. We too are on a good run off late with 5 wins in our last 5 games, and sit second. Liverpool, West Brom and Man City are not too far off.
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Champions League Group Stage 2017/18: A trip to Paris

With Rafinha, Veratti, Ibra in their line-up, PSG looked intimidating. It took them just 4 mins to take the lead. Ibrahmovic used his strength to get to a cross first and headed it towards goal. Bettinelli had no chance.
1-0 to PSG. Not the start I wanted.

PSG were all over us in the opening 20 minutes. Even the 'big four' in the Premier League haven't pushed us this far back into our own half. PSG scored another one from their next attack. Yarmolenko exchanged passes quickly with Veratti and got behind our defense and slipped one past Bettinelli. There were six PSG players in our box during this attack and it wasn't even a corner or a free kick. This is horrible.
2-0 to PSG

Our first significant attack found Woodrow with some space in PSG's box. Woodrow tried to dribble past their defense but was clumsily tackled by Otamendi. It was a foul, as clear as day. Ref points to the spot. Just the whiff of luck we needed. Woodrow, who won the penalty stepped up and scored. A life line.
PSG 2-1 Fulham.

Half-time came by. I changed the formation completely. PSG's fullbacks were bombarding forward way too often for my liking and I switched to a tactic that emphasized on using the wingers a lot more to take advantage of the wide spaces. I told them to focus and go for the equalizer. The second half started..

We were a whole lot better. PSG who had close to 65% possession in the first half were finally pushed back into their half. We were creating something, nothing big yet but it's better than what we did in the first half.

The better chances did fall to PSG though but they didn't have even a single shot on target in the second half. They have only themselves to blame. And we made them pay. George Williams, who came on in the 80th minute scored just 7 mins later with a powerful shot from just inside the area. Our bench and staff went crazy. We pulled level. A 2 goal come back.
PSG 2-2 Fulham

I told the lads to concentrate. I'll take a draw. The lads kept their calm and focus, and we got a crucial point.
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Group Stage:
​Sociedad are on top with 3 victories from three. We are above PSG only on goal difference at the moment. So, it's pretty tight at the moment.
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I cannot believe we lost this. We should've scored atleast two in the first half given our dominance but Finnbogason hit the bar once and Woodrow missed an easy goal scoring opportunity. I really hoped that those misses didn't come back to haunt me but they did.

Jermain Lens gave them the lead just before the hour mark with a nice finish but it was totally against the run of play. Our midfield, which was really good in the first half made a costly mistake to let Burnley in. After 57 minutes of composure and vision, Kranevitter and Baselli failed to communicate and Lens picked up the misplaced pass in a dangerous area. A quick exchange pass and seconds later, a goal for Burnley.

I kept shouting at the touch line. "Push forward," I yelled at the top of my voice. In the 71st minute, Burnley had a corner. We didn't clear it well. When Bojan received the ball in our box, Balanta lunged into him like a madman with a two-footed challenge. The ref blew his whistle - we all knew the result. It was a horrible challenge. Balanta got sent off, Arfield scored for Burnely from the spot. 2-0 down with 10 men, and the game was over for us. Over 60% possession, nearly thrice the chances but we lost 0-2. I am going to deal with Balanta. He let the team down. A needless tackle as Bojan didn't even have a clear shot at goal. Balanta gifted Burnley their second goal.
For the second home game in a row, we couldn't make our dominance count. This is frustrating. Burnley, who have the worst defensive record in the league kept their first clean sheet today and moved from 20th to 18th. Meanwhile, me move one spot down to 3rd with Man City going ahead on goal difference. Chelsea have won their 9th game in a row and sit top of the league with 9 points ahead of the City.
 
Balanta has been a fantastic player for us so far but over the last 3 games, he has made some mistakes. And his red card for a reckless tackle inside our box killed the Burnley game.

I watched the incident a couple of time from different angles and came to the conclusion that I had to take some action. I usually issue formal warnings to players who have been red carded but I felt this deserved more.

I'm not a big fan of slapping a fine on the players as it can have several unfortunate consequences, and more importantly, I am not that kind of a manager. I pondered over it for a while and finally called in Mike Rigg, our director of football. I told him to draft a formal letter indicating that Balanta will be fined a week's earnings.

Balanta accepted his fine. He knew that he committed a very bad mistake and he let the team down.
I also called him into my office for a chat. Nothing serious. I just wanted to tell him that I have faith in him despite bad performance last game, and as a club captain, he must lead by example.

He acknowledged what I said and said he'd hold high standards from now on and lead from the front. Just what I wanted to hear.
 
Capital One cup 2017-18: Fourth Round

What a thrilling game! This game raised my BP several times. The first half was rather calm. To be honest, it was more like the calm before the storm. Woodrow's header gave us the lead and we went into half time 1-0 ahead.

Roberts doubled our lead in the 58th minute in a typical inside forward fashion. He made a timely run as Woodrow held the ball and made a lovely pass. And then the drama started. After Pat Roberts scored, Charlton pulled level with 2 goals in the 5 mins that followed. With Balanta and Burn out, I had to start with a previously untested back four and they let me down with some shoddy work.

Williams scored a brilliant goal in the 73rd minute as he ran about 30 yards beating players and unleashing a shot, which deflected into the goal. 2 mins later, Hyndman scored the best goal of the night with a fantastic 20 yarder that whistled into the net. 4-2 up and I thought we were through.

But Watt scored for Charlton in the 88th minute giving me a bit of a headache. But we restored our 2 goal lead in the 90th minute through Finnbogason. Phew! 5-3 win over Charlton and we are through to the Quarter Finals.

de Vilhena was fantastic in the role just behind the striker as he made 3 assists and controlled the midfield well.
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Once again, Charlton only had 4 shots on goal and scored 3. We are really not making our dominance count, and this will hurt us if we don't tighten up our defense soon.​

Hyndman's Goal:
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Our defending has been rather pathetic off late with the opposition having close to 50% goal to shots on target ratio. This has led to a few bad performances, like the 0-1 defeat to Sociedad and 0-2 loss to Burnley, both at home. The Charlton game, which we were once dominating turned into a much closer encounter than I wanted it to be.

Over the last few weeks, we have been focusing on ball control, movement and team cohesion in the training and I felt like we needed to pay more attention to defending. I wanted to meet with my defending coaches - Craig Bellamy, Richard Naylor, Andy Welsh and my asst. coach Baresi.

"Over the next two weeks, let's place more emphasis on defending. We have big games against Chelsea and PSG coming up and a strong defensive foundation will go a long way in these games," I said.

All of them nodded in agreement. I have been mixing up the tactics recently - specifically 4231 wide and a standard 442. However, given the nature of the next two games, I told to focus on the 4231 tactic to counter Chelsea and PSG.

So, with heavy focus on defending, I really hope we can get our act together at the back and stop leaking goals.
 
That's more like it. What a performance. Chelsea came into this game on the back of 9 straight wins. And we stopped their run. We stopped them from equalling Tottenham's record for the best ever start to a Premier League season with 11 wins.

The game was a see-saw encounter. It started with intensity and a whole lot of drama as Ramires made a reckless tackle in the 3rd minute. He covered over 15 yards of covered and lunged into Pat Roberts with a two footed studs-up challenge. RED CARD in the 3rd minute.

Things worsened for Chelsea as Diego Costa, who was defending a corner fouled Stafylidis inside the box. PENALTY! There were protests from Chelsea but the referee didn't have any of it. Woodrow, who has a 100% record with penalties stepped up and kept his perfect conversion rate. 1-0 up.

Chelsea tried to push forward but their one man disadvantage clearly showed. They put several good moves together but the end result was missing for them. We went into half time with a lead. But we all know Chelsea, and Mourinho. He is not one to give up so easily. I warned the players against complacency. This may seem odd but I changed from a 4231_wide formation to a slightly more defensive 4123_wide formation. Kranevitter's versatility allowed him to seamlessly slip into the DM position after playing in the CM role during the first half.

We kept held of the ball well and kept Chelsea at bay. Woodrow gave us a 2-0 lead just before the hour mark with a very good header from a Stafylidis' cross. Craven Cottage erupted and our players were ecstatic. But given our defending off late, this game was far from over.

I was on the touchline telling the players to concentrate. We simply can't allow Chelsea a way in here. Despite being down to 10 men, they have some fantastic players. I brought in Jermaine Jones for his physicality and solidify our defense. Chelsea couldn't find a way back and we won.

After 3 seasons without a win against Chelsea, we beat them twice in two encounters this seasons. Brilliant!
We had 3 shots on target and scored 2. Kinda like what other teams did to us in the recent past. But unlike those games, we didn't win against the run of the play. The game was fairly well balanced in terms of the overall attempts and possession.
 
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Champions League Group Stage 2017/18: PSG come to Craven Cottage

Another draw against PSG. This was truly a game of two halves. We were dominant in the first half and pushed PSG into their own half. Woodrow came close in the 20th minute but his header off a corner grazed the top of the bar. Woodrow got another chance a few minutes before half time but his shot was well-saved by Sirigu. We finally took the lead through Vilhena as he tapped in a simple goal after Sirigu parried away Hyndman's free kick in the stoppage time. Seconds before the half time, Kranevitter received a second yellow card for a foul on Rafinha and got sent off. It was a horrible time for us to get a red card.

I had to shuffle things up a little bit at half time following that dismissal. I didn't hide my anger as I blasted Matias for such careless tackling while on a yellow card.

The very first move of the second half gave PSG the equalizer before we could even get a touch of the ball. With a man down and score level against a 3 man attack force of PSG consisting of Ibra, Cavani and Yarmolenko, this was going to be tough. PSG were the better team for most of the second half and they tried to take advantage of their extra player on the pitch but we defended rather well to keep them at bay.

PSG came close a few times as Ibrahimovic, Canani and Veratti all came close with the former two hitting the post. I was delighted to come away with a draw after the red card in the first half. A defeat would've really hampered our chances of qualification.
 
Q.P.R. vs. Fulham​
After our face-off against League leaders Chelsea, we face another bitter rival - Q.P.R. this time at their home ground. We have the better team but that means nothing in these games.
An early goal sealed the victory for us. Daniele Baselli scored from 20 yards out with a curling freekick into the top corner. Superb stuff from the 26 yr old Italian. Chris Ramsey's side showed no signs of giving up and made sure to stop every attack of ours in the midfield itself. But we were no pushovers and did the same to them. So overall, this was one of those games where the ball spent most of the time in the middle of the park. Having said that, it was very entertaining because both teams were trying to push forward instead of just knocking it about in midfield.

Two derby victories in two consecutive games. The fans are sure to be delighted.
Fulham vs. West Ham
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Wow. This was a fantastic game. Woodrow gave us the lead with a typical shot from the man. A 15 yarder full of venom. Great shot. Our second was straight off the training ground. West Ham have a terrible record against set-pieces and our pre-match training focused on scoring from set-pieces. It worked well as Vilhena's far post run wasn't picked up by the Hammers defense and his tap in gave us a 2 goal lead.

One minute later, our lead was halved from their corner. We are generally fantastic at defending corners but not this time. Klavan found some space in our box and scored for them. The next hour or so was full of intensity. Every now and then, I had to yell from the touchline asking the lads to concentrate. In the end, we won. But it was a narrow victory with lots of close moments - way more than I can recollect. But 3 points nonetheless.
THE LEAGUE:
Second in the league with 3 points behind Chelsea. Chelsea, who were nine points clear at one stage lost two in a row - to us and West Ham, allowing us to cut their lead at the top to just 3 points.

This is what derby games can do. We won two in two and they lost two in two.

Liverpool are just a point behind us while Man City, Spurs and West Brom are not too far off.
 
Champions League Group Stage 2017/18

A very important result. PSG and ourselves were tied on points before this game and we had to win to give us a shot at qualification to the knock-outs. Finnbogason, who scored five in Moscow began the scoring in this return fixture. It just took him 70 seconds or so to find the goal. He absolutely terrorized the CSKA defense after that goal. He got into so many good positions but couldn't put the finishing touch after opening the scoring.

Just before the half hour mark, winger Kacaniklic scored to double our lead. Alexander doesn't get much into scoring areas as his main job is to whip in the crosses from left flank but on this occasion, he made a good run into the box. Vilhena found him with a lobbed pass and Kacaniklic belted one with his left foot.

2-0 up and our goal keeper was hardly tested. CSKA came with a bit more intent after half time but their strikers left their goal scoring boots at home. They had a few chances and even though they weren't easy ones, the strikers should've atleast shot on target.

3 vital points.
And the group is finely balanced. CSKA Moscow are out of Europe with their loss to us. Depending on the final day's result, any of the top three can qualify to the knock-out stages. We travel to Spain to face Sociedad and PSG travel to Russia to take on CSKA Moscow on the final day. Exciting stuff!
 
Tight finish to the group mate, i think you can roll Sociedad away from home & top the group! :)
 
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A very dominant performance from the outset. We had a few fantastic chances to go 1-0 up in the first half but the goal came in the stoppage time at the end of first half. It was Finnbogason who gave us the lead with a poacher's finish. What a fantastic way to go into the break.


But Cardiff hit us back immediately after the break with a well worked goal on their right flank. I was a bit disappointed to concede the goal but always had the faith in the team that they'd score. And Woodrow scored from 15 yards with a real powerful shot. It may have been a narrow lead but given our dominance in this game, I had full confidence in the lads to see us through.


Cardiff may not be Fulham's rivals but they ended our 12 match unbeaten streak last season and it's nice to beat them after a dominating performance.​
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