Jack and Loz at the Cottage - Blog 298

Date: 26th January 2025

Opposition: Manchester United

Score: 0-1

Weather: cold

Atmosphere: tense

Man of the First Half: Saša Lukić controlled the first half of the match, sweeping around the pitch putting a tackle in here, a dispossession there, a key pass through the middle. Saša looked majestic off the ball and imperious on it and his commanding presence was a ray of light on a dank day for Fulham. There was no Man on the Match and no Man of the Second Half although kudos to Calvin Bassey who worked very hard throughout.

Drinks and early dinner: The Blue Boat

It is a well known footballing fact that if you’re a side struggling for a win, low on confidence and short on goals there’s an easy remedy - line up a match against Healing Hands FC and we will revive your spirits and transform your season.

Fulham fans weren’t naive enough to think that our team’s overly-generous nature had morphed into ruthlessness by inflicting defeat on suffering Leicester. We feared that as soon as we were predicted to beat the self-styled Worst Man United Team in History we would revert to type.

And so it proved.

The first half wasn’t too bad. We (meaning Saša Lukić) controlled the game. We won, and sometimes even kept, possession. We probed forwards. We had some chances. And missed them.

Play was slow but solid. United looked like a side who had played midweek. Fulham looked like a side who had played on Saturday. There was none of the scintillating football that we’re capable of and the few fast attacks we managed to construct came to nothing in the final Moments. In other words the defence was good, the midfield was ok and the attack was poor.

We were clearly the better team and the only one that had been proactive but at half time we had nothing to show for it.

At Leicester a scoreless but promising first half was the platform for an inspired and faultless second. We can barely bring ourselves to write about the second half on Sunday. It was almost a relief to see Harry go off as he’d been so ineffective but Adama came on in bull-in-a-china-shop mode and was ineffective too. Saša lost his dominance and faded into the background and Berge wasn’t as good as he was last week. Andersen’s hoofed clearances were a lot more useful than his attempts at long passes. Muniz added nothing, Iwobi had a resurgence of Man Flu and ESR floundered around in his baggy shirt always too far from the action.

We played into Man U’s hands, letting them dictate the game at their preferred Walking Football pace. We didn’t press, we didn’t run in behind, we didn’t play with intensity or passion or imagination.

Things improved when Tom and Andreas came on but the changes were much too late. By then we were a goal down and what could have been a fast and furious finish was a desperate melee of missed chances. Other than Andersen’s cleared-off-the-line header we never looked like scoring with Muniz and Traore firing far over.

It’s not so much the result that matters here as the lacklustre performance. United were poor and yet we made them look like….prime Man United. What’s gone wrong? Have our tactics become too transparent? Perhaps. But it seems to be that most of our players have suffered a dip in form at the same time. Andersen has gone from being our Great Dane to Hamlet when he’s totally lost it in Act IV. Castagne’s become too comfortable in his starting berth, Harry blows hot and cold, Adama puts the fast in fast and loose and our strikers just aren’t clinical enough.

But also we’re missing a spark; a player who can make something out of nothing with one deft touch like Willian, or a player who can create a goal out of a half chance and force the ball over the line like….well, we all know who we mean.

This is a fantastic Fulham team who only a month ago beat our fiercest rivals in a cleverly plotted and bravely executed Boxing Day drama. But it suddenly feels like they’re losing their way.

Random musings:-

- Tom is channeling his inner Saša with that haircut

- So black clothes and white trainers is a Portuguese thing

- It was great to see EVDS at half time. Would have been good to sing his song though!

- They’ve made the kicking distance to win the cruise shorter but well done to the guy who won

- The ref missed a few things but let the game flow

- If we were unlucky to lose that match then the only thing we do consistently is attract bad luck.

Ticketing musings:-

- Tickets for this dire match included some priced at £160. Apart from the fact that was obviously a complete waste of money, who can afford £160 to watch a football match? At this rate only Premier League footballers will be able to watch Premier League Football

- The match was “sold out” although there were lots of empty seats, no doubt a combination of the stupid kick-off time and the even more stupid prices

- In order to “sell out” the Club had to spend a fortune on advertising and due to the delay in finding enough millionaires to buy the tickets, ticket exchange didn’t open. Another reason for empty seats

- Obviously, with this pricing strategy lots of tickets were bought by Man U fans and some turned up to sit in the home areas wearing their gaudy red kit! They are a notably dim fan base with many outside the ground asking where the Riverside Stand was. Clue. Name.

- Recently, Alistair MacIntosh admitted that Marco has asked him to find a way to improve the atmosphere at Craven Cottage. Perhaps Marco should have been more explicit but it’s obvious that the quickest and easiest way to turn the Cottage back into a fortress is to fill it with Fulham fans by charging them sensible prices.

Back to the football but only to say that was very much a game to forget. It feels like our league season is over and that the middle of the table will be our home from now on.

But is that really so bad? Remember when we were 91st in the football league. Remember when we were scraping along the bottom of the Championship playing the Magath Football of Death, what would we have given then for Premier League mid table safety? To be disappointed to lose to Man U? For a 4th consecutive season in the top flight to be all but guaranteed?

Remember where we’ve come from. There’s a lot more reason for satisfaction than disappointment this season.