Doing a Fulham

[romavillan]

Just now, Jimzk5 said:

When you can't defend against Jordan Ayew it's time to worry

Taking out the awful ref from today did we really deserve anything, Heaton saved us from losing 4 nil, we offered nothing going forward, the midfield was overrun by Palace

Very worrying game and performance for me

Ayew's goal was jammy as ****. Lucky bounce up on to his chest and perfectly in the clear, tidy finish after that but total fluke getting through Mings and Grealish with a gyppo ricochet.

[spiezels]

VT overreacting yet? 

[Jimzk5]

Just now, romavillan said:

Ayew's goal was jammy as ****. Lucky bounce up on to his chest and perfectly in the clear, tidy finish after that but total fluke getting through Mings and Grealish with a gyppo ricochet.

Ayew had more chances than the goal he scored, he got through our back line numerous times

[Keyblade]

2 minutes ago, Jimzk5 said:

Ayew had more chances than the goal he scored, he got through our back line numerous times

Just that solitary shot on target though.

[Jimzk5]

2 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

Just that solitary shot on target though.

But that's the difference, lucky deflection or not he scored, I didnt expect us to go to Palace and win 4-0, I did expect us to go and put in a performance which we didn't

I'm as pissed off with the refs performance as anyone else but it's taking the flak away from the players who today were **** shit

[Mantis]

26 minutes ago, ciggiesnbeer said:

Still feeling pretty chill about the whole season. Even though we have spent, we can still afford to get relegated and spend a couple of years in the Championship with roughly this same squad if we need to. Its a good team with few if any obviously bad players. I am very confident we would come back up even if the worst happened. Which I dont think it will, we look comfortable as a lower half PL team already and its only 4 games in. 

Yeah. At the very least compared to the last time we were in the PL, we aren't a club that is rotten to the core anymore.

[hippo]

All the new players could still come good - but the only that look good enough are Engels and Heaton. Trez looks miles off, Luiz seems to go awol - Guilbert looks lightweight defensivley.

[Keyblade]

33 minutes ago, Jimzk5 said:

But that's the difference, lucky deflection or not he scored, I didnt expect us to go to Palace and win 4-0, I did expect us to go and put in a performance which we didn't

I'm as pissed off with the refs performance as anyone else but it's taking the flak away from the players who today were **** shit

Palace were just as bad. Just a really ugly game all around and then the ref kills the game. We're not always going to be on it away from home. I was hoping for a a somewhat decent performance but at the end of the day we were good for a point against a decent team away from home. We're not even a year out from the days of getting turned over at Wigan and Reading etc. As long as we put in performances at home like we did against Everton and Bournemouth (minus the mistakes) we should be fine imo.

[HanoiVillan]

3 hours ago, sne said:

We're doing a Villa.

Remains to be seen what that actually is.

For me there are some worrying signs, mainly that I don't see where the goals will be coming from and a lack of pace on and off the ball.

 

3 hours ago, ChrisVillan said:

Nothing. If we fail, we will own it on our own terms. We're not someone else's cliche.

I don't disagree with either of you; the notion of 'doing a Fulham' is essentially just the standard human weakness of noticing that action A led to result Z last time, and therefore assuming that A will therefore lead to Z every time. 

However, lots and lots of people seem to think that the conceptual framework of 'doing a Fulham' is worth discussing and applying to us, so regardless of how stupid it is it will continue to be applied until we either do conclusively better or worse. 

Maybe we just need the mods to change the name to 'The Relegation Thread', but perhaps people would feel it's too soon for that. 

[jackbauer24]

Unfortunately, I just don't think we're good enough. We also are paper thin in regards cover in all areas other than central midfield. Our wings are all very weak and our striker options are incredibly weak. As it stands, we'd be looking at finishing 16th-19th. But throw in injuries, suspensions and 'settling', we look pretty much dead-certs for relegation.

It's certainly not helped that practically every decision and rub of the green has gone against us but it'd be naïve not to suggest we've been by far second best in every match so far. Working hard, fighting and scraping for every ball and point with a strong team ethic is good but ultimately we're going to need quality.

It's not going to be as horrific as our last relegation in terms of quality and points but I think we were forced to make massive changes in the summer and unfortunately it is always going to be a near impossible challenge to succeed. I think we've fallen just short of achieving what we needed to do to survive unless something really clicks over the international break or we have a change in tactics (for example flooding the midfield with our ambundant options and replacing wingers)

I really hope I'm wrong.

[andym]

2 minutes ago, jackbauer24 said:

 

It's certainly not helped that practically every decision and rub of the green has gone against us but it'd be naïve not to suggest we've been by far second best in every match so far. Working hard, fighting and scraping for every ball and point with a strong team ethic is good but ultimately we're going to need quality.

 

I think it would be innaccurate to say that.

Today we absolutely were shit for 90 mins, but the other games we havent been completely outplayed for the whole game.

Even Spurs we matched them pretty well for the first half, it just fell apart completely when Erikksen came on and Ndombele also took over.

Bournemouth we actually played ok, but shot ourselves in the foot with stupid errors that left us an uphill climb.

Everton we has just as many strong spells as they did.

Its been a mixed bag so far, but we need to make sure performances like today dont happen regularly.

[jackbauer24]

13 minutes ago, andym said:

I think it would be innaccurate to say that.

Today we absolutely were shit for 90 mins, but the other games we havent been completely outplayed for the whole game.

Even Spurs we matched them pretty well for the first half, it just fell apart completely when Erikksen came on and Ndombele also took over.

Bournemouth we actually played ok, but shot ourselves in the foot with stupid errors that left us an uphill climb.

Everton we has just as many strong spells as they did.

Its been a mixed bag so far, but we need to make sure performances like today dont happen regularly.

Stats aren't everything but it really is pretty obvious we've been scrappy also rans.

Spurs vs Villa; Possession 70/30 Shots 31/7 (We defended brilliantly)

Bournemouth; Possession 63/37 Shots 21/12 (We did play well bar start, but first game at home and forced to chase after first minute)

Everton; Possession 35/65 Shots 7/12 (Very happy we won this against run of play)

Palace; Possession 53/47 Shots 22/10 (Admittedly with ten men for too long)

I have watched every game from start to finish and, perhaps Bournemouth aside, we've been pretty much outplayed for vast periods. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect us to be world beaters but we've generally offered very little other than effort. But this isn't an argument/view I want to carry on as I really, really hope I'm wrong and being overly negative in my appraisal!!

[VillaChris]

3 hours ago, ciggiesnbeer said:

Still feeling pretty chill about the whole season. Even though we have spent, we can still afford to get relegated and spend a couple of years in the Championship with roughly this same squad if we need to. Its a good team with few if any obviously bad players. I am very confident we would come back up even if the worst happened. Which I dont think it will, we look comfortable as a lower half PL team already and its only 4 games in. 

Really? 100m + spent would mean another ridiculous wage bill for the championship and we've already had a major brush with FFP. It's not a problem if you stay in the premier league.

Also Grealish, McGinn, Mings and Luiz, all these new heroes, would all move on. We'd have lost Mings and Grealish if we hadn't gone up of course so another rebuild with loans again which may or may not work.

To me it's not in owners plan at all for us to meekly go back down, not with the crowd engaged again and core support massively growing. We need to stay up and as harsh as it sounds if we're in major danger of going down in March I think we'd see a change of manager and serious throw of the dice.

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Really? 100m + spent would mean another ridiculous wage bill for the championship and we've already had a major brush with FFP. It's not a problem if you stay in the premier league.

Also Grealish, McGinn, Mings and Luiz, all these new heroes, would all move on. We'd have lost Mings and Grealish if we hadn't gone up of course so another rebuild with loans again which may or may not work.

To me it's not in owners plan at all for us to meekly go back down, not with the crowd engaged again and core support massively growing. We need to stay up and as harsh as it sounds if we're in major danger of going down in March I think we'd see a change of manager and serious throw of the dice.

Back to the ostensible subject of the thread, Fulham managed to keep their team largely together this year, with Cairney and Mitrovic among others staying on. At least some of our large contingent of new signings would be staying, because by the fact that we were relegated they would have mostly flopped at this level so they wouldn't all be in demand. 

That said, obviously you're right that we aren't planning to be relegated, and will be rolling the managerial dice when it looks like we're in real trouble. 

[VillaJ100]

14 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Back to the ostensible subject of the thread, Fulham managed to keep their team largely together this year, with Cairney and Mitrovic among others staying on. At least some of our large contingent of new signings would be staying, because by the fact that we were relegated they would have mostly flopped at this level so they wouldn't all be in demand. 

That said, obviously you're right that we aren't planning to be relegated, and will be rolling the managerial dice when it looks like we're in real trouble. 

If we went down we would be absolutely destroyed. Grealish Mcginn Heaton Mings Engels Guilbert Luiz and probably Wesley and El Ghazi all gone. 

[New_Hope]

Can people just chill their beans ffs!!

[Villarocker]

20 hours ago, Jimzk5 said:

But that's the difference, lucky deflection or not he scored, I didnt expect us to go to Palace and win 4-0, I did expect us to go and put in a performance which we didn't

I'm as pissed off with the refs performance as anyone else but it's taking the flak away from the players who today were **** shit

You're right. We were outplayed by them and but for Heaton and some wasteful Palace finishing we could have lost that by 3 or 4. We do need to be better than that and maybe that's a game Deano and his coaching staff can look at to find ways of making us harder to get through. To be fair though, most of their attacks came through Zaha and we'll only play him once more this season. 

[HanoiVillan]

10 minutes ago, VillaJ100 said:

If we went down we would be absolutely destroyed. Grealish Mcginn Heaton Mings Engels Guilbert Luiz and probably Wesley and El Ghazi all gone. 

I doubt it. 

[PieFacE]

10 minutes ago, New_Hope said:

Can people just chill their beans ffs!!

Yup. Still got a new team who are gelling, we're 4 games into the season, 50% of our games have been against sides who finished in the top 8 last season.

We had a bad day at the office yesterday and still should have come away with a point. 

Not going to rule out relegation this year, it's hard to even determine who will be in a relegation battle, all teams look incredibly good this year so far. But... I think we'll have enough to finish 17th at least.

Edited September 1, 2019 by PieFacE

[useless]

If we go down then it follows  that we will have underperformed, so I doubt we'd lose most of our side in that scenario, besides in that scenario we'd might want to get rid of a number of players anyway. If Grealish, McGInn, Heaton, Mings, Engels, Guilbert, Wesley and Luiz are as good as we hope, or good enough that they'll suddenly leave if we finish bottom three, then we shouldn't be getting relegated to begin with.