The rise of Fulham

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The vital trip to Stamford Bridge

This was a bit like giving Mourinho a taste of his own medicine. An extreme grind. Chelsea had 30 shots at goal with 8 on target, while we had just 11 shots and 4 on target. Chelsea had 59% possession but we defended really well to keep them at bay.

Hazard gave them an early lead with just 50 secs played. He dribbled past two players and beat Bettinelli. It was a moment of brilliance from the Belgian. Chelsea kept knocking at our door in search of a second and the noise in the stadium was deafening. We silenced the boisterous Stamford Bridge in the 78th minute with a goal from a corner. Baselli's corner was only partially cleared by Calum Chambers. Amorebieta pounced onto the loose ball and beat Coutois at his near post.

We held out for a draw and Chelsea were disappointed. But not me! Any result but a Chelsea win is what I wanted and we got it. We are still level with Chelsea on points but we have a game in hand. They have a better goal difference though.
League Cup:
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So, Man United won the League Cup. Here's an interesting fact:

This is my fourth season at Fulham and we had to face Manchester United each time in the League Cup. What's interesting is that the winner of our tie went on to win the Cup itself.

















Arsenal come calling...
In their last six Premier League fixtures, Arsenal managed 4 draws and 2 losses and failed to win games in which they were heavy favourites. This saw them slip from 5th to 9th in the League. To make things worse, they were already out of FA Cup as well. Arsenal board was not too happy with this and sacked their manager Miguel Angelo Russo.
And they approached me for an interview. My answer was obvious.
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Great result at Chelsea. Also good to see Mourinho beaten at his own game!
 
One derby after another

After holding Chelsea to a draw at Stamford bridge, we welcome (well, not really) rivals Q.P.R. to Craven Cottage. Robin van Persie, who moved to Q.P.R. from Man United last summer was supposed to be the danger man for us. We started the game 3 points behind Chelsea but with 2 games in hand.

View attachment 281393So, far I have a 4/1 win/loss record against Queens Park Rangers. I want to improve upon it.

The game:
We dominated from kick-off and got several opportunities in the opening few minutes. And all that dominance paid off when Halilovic scored for us in the 30th minute with a 25 yard left footed thunderbolt. The stadium erupted. It was a wonderful effort by the 21 year old. 1-0 to us. The first half ended with that scoreline.

QPR came roaring in the second half. Van Persie who played the lone striker role in the first half was now supported by Adel Taarabt just behind him. van Persie looked a lot more dangerous now. But they couldn't go past our resilient defense.

QPR switched to an extremely offensive formation around the 70th minute. The 20 mins remaining were slowly ticking down and we looked to be bringing home 3 vital points. Until....

View attachment 281392This cross by Blanco gave them the equalizer in the 84th minute. Nicolaj Thomsen scored off Blanco's cross. I was shocked...

WHAT THE **** WAS THAT DEFENDING? THREE QPR PLAYERS WERE UNMARKED INSIDE THE BOX (ONE OF WHICH WAS THOMSEN) AND 4 OF MY PLAYERS WERE JUST BALL WATCHING.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I was at the touchline demanding them to give me more.

So, it was 1-1. I was angered and brought on Finnbogason in the 87th minute as nothing more than a final gamble. Finny has gone over 10 hrs of football without a goal now and the goal wasn't coming off his boot today. 90 mins gone. QPR were still dominating and searching for the winner.

I was praying that QPR doesn't score. Even a point is good in our current situation in the league. From the fan's perspective, there's a big diff. between a draw and a home defeat. Please don't be the latter...Please...

And then this happened IN THE 91st minute....

GOOOOOOAAAAALLLLLL! FINNBOGASON SCORES. 2-1 TO FULHAM.

What!! I couldn't believe it. Woodrow put in a beautiful cross for Finnbogason who has just been on for 3 minutes to give Fulham the lead. Surely the winner? Surely?

You betcha. I kept yelling 'Concentrate' repeatedly at the touchline. And the lads held their nerve for the remaining 3 mins or so and secured a thrilling victory. FULHAM 2-1 QPR.
 
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xJamieWilliams said:
Great win over QPR, think you can go on to win it?
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Hopefully. Chelsea have a slightly tougher run in compared to us.

Both of us have been dropping points a bit, recently. So, it's most likely to go down to the wire.
 
Finnbogason has been in terrible form off late, having failed to score in over 10 hours of competitive football. The fans have raised their disappointment and there were some boos in the recent time whenever he got the ball.

I tried warning him, issuing a fine and even just talking to him saying I have faith. And finally, he scored. And he simply couldn't have picked a better moment to score as well. 91st minute, against our rivals QPR with the score at 1-1 AND having come on as a substitute just 3 mins before.
The League:
With less than 10 games left, things are getting interesting in the Premier League. Chelsea and ourselves are level on points, but we have a game in hand. Liverpool in 3rd place are 8 points behind us and I'd be absolutely disgusted if we let them sneak past us.

Only 8 points separate Liverpool in 3rd and Newcastle in 10th. So, European QView attachment 281287ualification spots are a bit up for grabs. Even the bottom of the table looks pretty close as there are only 7 points in between the bottom six teams.

Chelsea have a slightly tougher run in compares to us but given the rate at which both of us are dropping points, it's going to be close.

Chelsea
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Fulham
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FA Cup 2017-18 Sixth Round: Fulham v Manchester United

I was looking forward to this game for a long while now. Man United knocked us out of the View attachment 281108League Cup this season and I wanted to get my revenge by knocking them out of a cup competition.

With Man Utd being the only 'big five' club to make it to this stage, many would've wanted to avoid them. Not me.

It's time to get some revenge. My pre-match team talk reflected that. "We need to get revenge after what they did to us in the League Cup. We have to knock them out. The fans will be expecting that. Don't let them down."

It was a home game, so we had a slight advantage. But it was never going to be easy. United came into this game on the back of two derby victories - against Man City and Liverpool. So, we had to be at our best...

And we wereIt was a very even game though. We had marginally better possession with 52%. But both teams had 16 shots, 8 of which were on target. We scored when Jonny Evans let Halilovic in from our right rather easily to find enough space to unleash a beauty. De Gea had no chance.

And once we went 1-0 up, we put on a show of the top quality. The players simply didn't want to keep quiet with the ball at their feet. Whenever we had the ball, the lads looked relentless and when they attacked, my players were well organized defensively. Good performance, especially with the Barca match next.
FA Cup Semi-Final draw
 
One of my most anticipated moments of each season. Over the past couple of years, two players have impressed me - Mike Roper (DL) and Murray Norton (AMC) among the youth candidates. Both are on U18 contract currently and my coaches believe they have the potential to be quality players.

This season, one player has caught my eye. Even my coaches think he has the potential to be a quality player. His attributes look rather promising.
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His physical attributes aren't the best but he's just 15. More time in the gym will improve those things. Despite AMC being his natural role, his passing is rather sub-par. He looks to be a good winger though. I'll probably offer him a youth contract soon.
 
We went into this game at Nou Camp after a 1-1 draw at Craven Cottage. Besides Lustig and Halilovic (who is on loan from Barca), none of my players have ever played in Nou Camp and it was never going to be easy. Messi was back into the side after being sidelined for a month. He wasn't at his best condition though (79%) but it's still Lionel Messi. I picked Kranevitter in the defensive midfielder role and his primary job was to keep Messi quiet.
And we're out of the Champions League.

Barcelona dominated possession heavily as expected (65% by the end of the game) and creared early chances. Severe drama took place mid way around the first half. Guerreiro gave them the lead with a powerful shot from just inside the area. Woodrow cancelled it just a minute later with a deft header from a Lustig's corner. With the score at 1-1, it was even. But Munir gave Barca the lead and deservedly so. They were by far the better team in the first half.

Barca again dominated possession in the second half but Kranevitter was fantastic in keeping Messi quiet. That really kept Barcelona from creating chances in the final third. Messi was substituted in the 68th minute and his rating was 6.7, which was the least among all Barcelona players. We came close twice after that from Woodrow and Baselli.

70 mins gone, I had to go all out in search of a goal. If we score, we'd go through on away goals. Finnbogason came in and we switched from 4123 to 442. But Munir scored his second and Barca went 3-1 up. Given Barca's dominant possession, the game seemed to be over.

But Finny's goal in the 78th minute gave us a slight hope. It was a good team goal. Baselli, Woodrow, Roberts and Finny all combined well to get us into the game.

With 12 mins left, we needed one goal to go through. We enjoyed a bit of dominance in those last 10 minutes but couldn't produce a goal.

Barcelona were deserved winners, but that was a good performance at Nou Camp and we did come close. Not too disappointed with the performance but as always, a loss is never easy to digest....
 
A couple of things to report.

Firstly, three youth candidates signed youth contracts with us. This includes Steven McLean who looks to be a bright prospect.
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AC Milan have been recently sniffing around Italian international Daniele Baselli, who has been a mainstay in my midfield. Baselli wants to talk to me about wanting to move to play Champions League football more regularly.

Baresi told me of this the day before I arranged to have a one on one meeting with Baselli. I was a bit surprised to be honest. We played in the Champions League this season and are on course to qualify for next season as well. So, his reason to leave for Milan surprised me.

So, I asked Baselli to stay with us this season and make his decision depending on whether we qualify. I sounded positive and assured him that we can make it to the esteemed League.

He agreed. After a couple more talking points, he left my office. I let out a sign of relief!
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Lippo255 said:
Tough break mate, but you pushed them all the way! Chin up!
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Ya, I think we did well despite losing.

I was never too confident right from the moment we got Barca in the draw. But the very fact that we were in the game till the very last minute is something I can look back with pride.
 
Oh boy! I had no nails left at the end of this game. West Ham are 6th in the league and they gave us a fight. We went 2-0 up in the first half, thanks to goals from Woodrow and Kacaniklic. Woodrow's goal was rather straight forward. A corner by Baselli was headed on by Fellaini at the near post and Woodrow put the finishing touches to it.

Kacaniklic doubled our lead after 31 minutes when Baselli picked his run from the left wing with a lovely lobbed pass over the Hammers' back four. Despite the scoreline indicating a comfortable lead, there were a lot of shaky moments in the first half for our defense.

Our control of the game slowly started to fade away as the second half went on. Besler have Hammers a way back into the game with a good goal. The last 30 minutes were really hard for me to watch. We didn't do all that bad but Hammers were really good. They played very aggressively and Hyndman, playing in the deep playmaker role was out muscled time and again.

I brought in Kranevitter to replace Hyndman, as he is a lot more brave and aggressive. It helped a little bit as we gained control of the game a bit. But it didn't last long. West Ham had so many long shots in the last 10 minutes and kept knocking at our door many times. They came close 3 to 4 times, but we won the game in the end.

It was a very close game. Not a bad performance, but West Ham were really good.
 
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Thank you, Mr. Rodgers for you kind words but I believe 8 games in the Premier League can produce a lot of drama. It's too soon for me atleast, to be thinking about title chances.

As for the transfer talk, Chelsea are trying to unsettle Balanta by declaring interest in signing him. Balanta came to me asking to leave for Chelsea, for more Champions League football. First Baselli, now Balanta. I am not sure what has gotten into these players' heads - we played in the Champions League this season and are on course to qualify again. Sigh!

I told Balanta how disappointed I was that as a club captain he was willing to move to one our our biggest rivals. I even told him that there's no way in **** I'd sell him to a rival club. Balanta accepted my view and said that he brought up the issue as he thought it was the professional thing to do.
 
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