Jack and Loz at the Cottage - Blog 227

Date: 1st October 2022

Opposition: Newcastle United

Score: 1-4

Fulham goal scorer: Bobby Deconsolation Goal

Weather: blue skies, golden sunlight and turning leaves

Atmosphere: Credit where it’s due - the Newcastle fans were our loudest visitors for a while; the home stands were more…..subdued

MOTM (football): seriously?

MOTM (non-football): it was fantastic to see Kevin McDonald again, and looking so fit and well too. It would’ve been even better if he could have featured in the starting line-up

Cafe: Pret for lunch, Costa for post-match maple and hazel hot chocolate, which helped. A bit.

In a parallel universe, Fulham played Newcastle on Saturday and Aleksandar Mitrovic, who had already scored 4 goals this week, scored a few more; Fulham returned to the Champions League places and Nathaniel Chalobah was Man of the Match with a performance so good that the watching Joao Pahlinha resolved never to get another yellow card for the rest of his long and successful Fulham career.

But the reality was vastly different.

There were hints of the horror to come when the starting line-up was announced. Of course, we knew we would be missing Pahlinha due to his record breaking 5 yellow cards in 7 games but we didn’t realise quite how much we’d miss him. Joao was replaced by Chalobah who must have been desperate to grab this chance to show what he can do in the Premier League.

But Chalobah wasn’t the only new face in the starting 11. Kurzawa, who we haven’t seen other than pictured with a pen in his hand signing a contract, and Mbabu, who we haven’t seen since he literally assisted a Spurs goal, were our starting fullbacks.

So, half the squad are injured. Never mind the long term sick, Wilson and Solomon; Robinson hasn’t recovered from the Spurs match and Kebano got a “knock” on international duty. But what on earth happened to Willian and Tete, last seen (somewhat suspiciously it now turns out) playing cricket with Geoffrey Boycott? When you add the fact that Joao has a broken wrist and both Mitro and Kurzawa were to limp off before half time you start to wonder if Motspur Park looks more like a hospital than a training ground.

Anyway, with apologies to those of a sensitive disposition, we must get on to the match itself.

For a whole 6 minutes, Fulham were at full strength (in terms of quantity not quality) but we looked feeble in the face of Newcastle’s fast and aggressive start. They too were under strength but were full of confidence. It felt like this was going to be a very tough game even before Chalobah picked his moment to show us what he can actually do in the Premier League. In the worst performance by an English person since the Prime Minister went on local radio this week, Nathaniel flung himself into a tackle which might just have earned a yellow card in the Championship but only because they don’t have VAR. As it was, he saw red and the Championship is probably his next stop.

And then the full scale of the nightmare we were facing revealed itself.

During the next half hour, Fulham did not look like a top 6 team. Or indeed, a Premier League team. Despite the best motivational efforts of Captain Ream and much arm waving from Tosin, Newcastle scored 2 quick, effortless goals while Nick Pope (another English person who had been having a bad week) had nothing to do.

Kurzawa looked like he’d forgotten how to play football while Mbabu looked like he never knew in the first place. Puzzlingly, Marco Silva’s only tactical contribution to the carnage was to send Tom Cairney out to enliven the mood of the Hammy Enders. Tom very sensibly watched the rest of the first half from by the corner flag rather than returning to whatever crisis was going on in the dugout.

At 35 minutes, Mitro decided he’d had enough and limped off. Newcastle scored another goal and Kurzawa couldn’t take anymore. In the flurry of early subs, Mbabu was rescued from further indignity and we just about held on until half time.

After Kevin’s Forever Fulham award presentation which, while we’re in this mildly critical mood, we have to say would have been a lot better if his song hadn’t been drowned out by music on the PA system, play resumed and Fulham looked stronger and more organised.

This is entirely due to the subs. Tom was easily our best player even before his skill and vision set up the goal, Kebano was lively and industrious and Diop was solid and unflappable. This brings us to Vinicius who, as we have previously remarked sounds Roman. He thus entered the arena like a gladiator ready to take on the northern hoards but it turns out he’s a retiarius (the ones who fought with nets and trident like fishermen (what was that all about anyway?)) rather than a more dangerous murmillo.

Suffice to say, we drew the second half but rarely looked better than average. The ball was hard won but easily lost, there were some moments of individual skill but very little linking up and the scoreline would undoubtedly have ended up worse if it wasn’t for Leno. Harrison Reed and Andreas deserve mentions in dispatches for working very hard while Dan James ran around a lot but did little else.

In fairness to the newbies, this was a baptism of fire. They will get better and the wounded will return so we won’t have to rely on the understudies so much. But it’s notable that our best (and we use the word advisedly) players were mainly the old hands and that it was 3 of them who combined for Bobby’s dazzling goal.

This was a disappointing match in every way, including the fact that after the sending off the players didn’t show the level of fight required to give Newcastle a good game. However, it’s the first league match in 8 that we’ve felt like that and there were extenuating circumstances. But the rot has to stop here.

Random musings:-

- The minute’s applause for Fred Callaghan was lovely and was supported by 100% of the Newcastle fans

- It was nice to see Matttt Ttargetttt again

- Marco only made 4 subs. Everyone else was too young to be scarred by playing a game like that. Or injured, obviously

- The ref made some odd decisions

- Hopefully Mitro’s departure was mainly precautionary - there was no point in exacerbating a minor injury by chasing a lost cause

- It was great to see fans in the upper section of the Riverside. They paid 3 figures to watch that match though…..

- From the mutual applause between players and fans at the end of the match you would have thought we’d won not self-destructed, which was good to see.

We’ve been very critical but the fact of the matter is Saturday’s starting 11 didn’t match up to the high standards Fulham have set this season or last. Their manager tarnished his Silva sheen by making some mistakes, most notably not starting Tom and not playing Tim at left back where he excelled against Forest. Maybe Mitro shouldn’t have started and maybe the first subs should have been made much earlier. But Marco is allowed a bad day at the office and hopefully he won’t have to cope with such a depleted squad again.

After our excellent start, this match was an aberration but also a warning. As exciting as it was to see Fulham’s name in the top 6 over the international break, that isn’t where we’re going to finish the season. No one is too good to go down, and in football, as Nathaniel Chalobah demonstrated, things can go very wrong, very quickly.