Excellent look at the WBA game.

      

Here’s a recommendation that you simply may not ignore.

“A Cultured Left Foot” by Musa Okwonga. (publisher’s page: http://www.ducknet.co.uk/general/title.php?titleissue_id=388 )

Okwonga is an Old Etonian. I used to work with an Old Etonian, and he was at once bright, eccentric, curious, hilarious. These qualities are in evidence in Okwonga’s prose. His writing is almost poetic, leading you to insights that had previously been just beyond your grasp. I’ve only read three chapters but this is a keeper, one to read and re-read down the line. It couldn’t be better.

In short, Okwonga is fascinated by greatness. What makes a great player? He has eleven themes to explore, the first three being feet, balance, and fun. A great player needs great feet, he suggests, so spends a chapter talking about footballers’ feet. A great footballer needs great balance, so he talks about that, colouring his ideas with examples from the real world, Ryan Giggs, Garrincha, Archie Gemmill. It’s just brilliant reading. He splices his thoughts and examples with discussions with experts, a ballerina (for balance), a foot specialist (for feet), and it’s never less than riveting. The third chapter is ‘fun’. Does a great footballer have to have, or be, fun? He talks about Brazilians and their extrovert play, contrasting this with the melancholic genius of Zinedine Zidane, the sad story of Paul Gascoigne and the madness of Roy Keane. He also quotes cricket’s Ed Smith, who is certain that most top sportsmen try too hard, rather than too little, as assumed by many of those watching them. That rings a bell, does it not?

I can’t recommend this enough. I couldn’t wish for a better book about football.

My copy came straight from Crockatt & Powell, Fulham Road. Independent booksellers rule, especially excellent ones like Matthew and Adam.

Email them at info at crockattandpowell dot com for your copy! It’s £7.99 in paperback, I think.

(the balance chapter talks about goals like these… drool)

      

There’s some postivity around Craven Cottage for once, as the reserves won 4-1 over West Ham at Motspur Park. And the West Ham site even had liveblogging. But then, I feel like I’ve written posts like this before. Oh wait, I have. Nonetheless Nevland, Seol, Wayne Brown and Julian Grey (remember him?) scored for the club in [...]

Dempsey to QPR?

American international Clint Dempsey was the subject of interest once more, for a possible loan spell, but according to the Hounslow Chronicle the deal was shelved due to the injury woes of the R`s West London rivals.

An R`s Insider told the Hounslow Chronicle: ‘We need some extra firepower to make sure the promotion plan remains on track.’ - Hardly required an insider to tell you that one I feel!

Dempsey is an attacking midfielder who can also be deployed as a striker, and he comes with a wealth of international experience scoring 9 goals in 28 appearances for his native USA.

The 25 year old made the £1.5m move from New England Revolution to Fulham back in the January transfer window of 2007. If this deal is tacitly dependent on Fulham`s injury list it may well be resurrected at a later date as the likes of the £6m rated Kamara gets back to full fitness.

I’m linking to Vital Football, which is one of those things you try not to do, but they’re referring to the Hounslow Chronicle so it ought to be safe enough.

Dowie delighted with Cook.  I read a match report recently that said Cook looked like Gheorghe Hagi!  Strange Days…

      

Humans crave certainty. We don’t like doubt and ambiguity. Not in important matters anyhow. And it’s a prevailing paradox that even football supporters, acolytes of a game ignited from within by it’s very unpredictability, are desperate to know how a season will play out, even in it’s preliminary stages.

It’s the natural tendency of the brain to organise, to categorise, to make sense of incongruent elements. To join the dots into what we believe is a cogent shape.

Fulham fans have been waiting for a sign; they’ve been searching for a pattern. Collectively, we strive to glean sufficient evidence to formulate a prospective fate for the season. This despite there being more than 30 games to be played, together with the vagaries of the transfer market, inconvenient injuries, and who knows what other whims to be visited upon a club that at times appears to be defined by such caprices.

Even after a few games we are eager to extrapolate form across a whole season, to second-guess the remaining games, and to predict our eventual standing. Do we top up our half-full or half-empty glasses, or tip the lot away and hunker down in preparation for long agonising slide into the division below?

Prior to last Saturday’s visit to West Bromwich Albion, forecasting was folly. How to assess the worth of a team that had yielded such disparate results?

A tenacious, stubborn victory against Arsenal, for so long a team for whom Fulham appeared to have been tailor-made, together with an elegant dismantling of Bolton that almost dissipated at the end. A lame surrender against a Hull team that merely dared to believe that they could win, and all-too-familiar scenes of self-destruction against a mediocre West Ham side.

Of course, such divergent swings have constituted a pattern of their own in previous seasons, the only constant being insipid away displays.

Emergent themes have already been proffered: the conceding of late goals, Hodgson’s tactical intransigence, defensive infirmity, and the Murphy/Bullard curate’s egg.

It was intrigues such as these that lured the White Lines charabanc out of London and up towards Birmingham. Pencil poised, lead licked and pointing pitch-wards, I committed the perennial error of allowing myself to feel optimistic before a Fulham game. We were going to win.

The whistle blows. Fulham pass the ball well now. The players are comfortable with the notion, they perform it almost automatically and, for the most part, successfully, even when angles are tight and space is limited.

Dempsey appears keen and, unable to breach the defence, fires off a few speculative 20-yarders. His threat, however, is nullified by opposition changes in the second-half that are not countered. Zamora is thwarted as he tries to turn on the edge of the box a few times. Gera shrugs off his invisible cloak to spurn a fine chance, before suffering some kind of Prodigal Son paralysis.

Micro-patterns emerge: build-up is generally patient (i.e. slow); desire for the perfect pass is inhibiting play and reducing openings; first-time crosses are a rarity - actual crosses are over-hit.

It’s a delight to see this team passing so well and with such ease, especially after the steady erosion of this aspect post-Tigana. Consequently one is hesitant to criticise, but at times it can resemble artistry for it’s own sake. There is little urgency, and forward motion is tentative. In fact, it can become somewhat soporific and, like gazing into a fish-tank, one sometimes finds oneself almost hypnotised by the graceful movements being described on the pitch below. Indeed, the players often appear to lull themselves into an almost obsessive-compulsive pattern, taking reassurance from the repetition. A comfort blanket of possession.

Individual players then appear frightened of breaking the spell, of being the weak link in the chain. No-one wants to play the probing ball that might surrender possession. When there is always a backwards or sideways outlet (usually Mr. Bullard on one of the full-back’s shoulders calling for the ball) it can absolve a player from making an offensive-minded decision.

Could it be that without a defensive midfielder we lack confidence in our ability to regain lost possession? Murphy fails to get recognition for his defensive efforts, but they are inconsistent and it’s not in his nature, while Bullard (perhaps understandably) appears happy to never engage in a tackle again. Ball-winning is thus rendered a weakness at present, and certainly dilutes the argument for the Murphy/Bullard partnership.

At the Hawthorns, this hesitance manifested itself most notably in the wide areas. Repeatedly we saw players unwilling to take a player on or deliver an early cross. Instead they check back, and return the ball to the increasingly-crowded central area. Here the recipient, usually Murphy, is then confronted with a forest of players in front of the 18-yard box, the opposition having had ample time to regroup.

Such sights recall the latter days of Tigana’s reign: exquisite passing undermined by an unhurried build-up; time granted to the opposition to re-assemble in their box and nullify all attempts at penetration; Fulham players increasingly static as the ball is passed back and forth 20 yards out.

Just as it can appear churlish to bemoan fluent passing or abundance of possession, so it may be regarded by some as sacrilege to question Jimmy Bullard. It’s his role that I query, though, for Fulham’s current squad can surely not be at a level yet where someone of his ability and drive could be jettisoned as surplus to requirements? Deployed correctly, he is critical.

Bullard enjoys a lot of possession and this always suggests a significant contribution is being made. But is it aimless industry? Much of his work on Saturday comprised fetching and carrying. Does he really need to collect the ball from Hangeland’s feet, ping it over to Konchesky, only to chase after it and demand it back again? Is he no more than a drone, a footballing drudge?

Against Arsenal he appeared to play a much more restricted game positionally, and the team appeared more robust, as they had to be. This team is talented enough to dance through many of it’s rivals, but I fear that Bullard’s insatiable roaming is dulling his creative edge, and diluting his impact.

This is a quandary for Hodgson to reckon with and hopefully resolve. He has questioned Bullard’s discipline before, and one wonders if this remains an issue between them.

Of course, it is to Hodgson that the questioning eyes ultimately return when results are amiss.

Without doubt, his measured manner and equanimity through good times and bad was a critical factor towards the end of last season. His refusal to over-react neither to lumpen defeat, nor thrilling comeback, enabled a calm self-belief to flourish. Such virtues, however, cannot co-exist with a swashbuckling, devil-may-care approach. They are not compatible. Hodgson is, in this respect, the anti-Mourinho. He maintains a stubborn faith that the right choice has been made and that the players and the tactics will come good. Given time.

Over the course of the season his creed may prevail. But supporters regularly stalked by relegation grow twitchy, and understandably seek short-term assurance. And so, as patterns begin to impose themselves, foreboding grows.

Some decent stuff in the Independent today:

Here

and

here

We’re number 5 in their debt table.  It’s interesting how others have avoided debt.  Check b+w_geezer’s series on Fulham Finances, incidentally, linked to in the sidebar.

5. Fulham

Owner: Mohamed al-Fayed

Debt: c£180m

Wholly reliant for survival on Fayed, who would sell if he could recoup losses.

      

Proceed at your peril…

On Tuesday morning one of the kids who gets my train had his usual ipod session interrupted.  He’s a big lad, Michelin man build, an innocent looking face that’s half-surly and half-bemused.  Looks like he’d be nice to his grandparents.   He was interrupted by a young girl, about the same age.  She was tiny, but radiant, the sort of girl people like, no questions asked.  And the Michelin kid’s face just lit up.  He was nervous, moving his head a lot, looking at the floor, but really happy.  They chatted for a while before getting on the train, at which point I lost sight of them.  Nice, I thought.  He’s normally on his own in the morning, listening to his music like most of us. This interruption seems to have cheered him up no end.

That evening there was some sort of local dance team waiting for commuters outside the tube station.  They had music going to promote some exercise schemes, and a few of the girls were dancing with the public.  One man, about fifty, he was right into it.  He had taken off his suit and was twirling one of the girls around.  She was a blonde, like the girl from the platform earlier, but she didn’t look at all happy.  It seemed to me that the commuter was overdoing it, that he’d been given a free dance with a pretty girl half his age and he’d taken too much, as we often do when offered good things for free.  His blonde wanted the interaction to stop.  But on they danced, for all the time it took me to walk past them and cross the road.

Two different surprise blondes, both greatly appreciated by their companions, but one happy, in the moment, one wishing she could be somewhere else.   The music went off in the morning, but was on too long in the evening.

———————

“If life is a performance and I am not an actor, am I supposed to lie down and die?”

Bad teenage poetry, right?  Well no.  I was at university in the mid-nineties.  I had a television in my room, as I recall it was in a wardrobe covered in clothes.  The reasons for this were that I had not got the hang of hanging clothes up on hangers so kind of lobbed them in there, and that I possibly didn’t have a license, and campus regulations regarding TV licenses were ambiguous, so I felt a need to be prudent.

One night I turned it on after the pub and watched The Word.  Trash TV for drunk people.  But there was a new face, a mop haired guitar player, chugging guitars, bashful but with the voice of an angel.  It was Juliana Hatfield.  I bought her album.  I love it, she’s brilliant.   But underappreciated.

Once an indie darling, her records didn’t sell as well as her first major label (Atlantic) had hoped, so she found herself on the scrap heap almost as quickly as she’d made the big time in the first place.  A few self-made records have found their way to us since, but for all their brilliance, the magic of those 90s heroics has not quite been recaptured.  While the new records may be better, the listener is different: I was 18 and full of angst and stupidity in the 90s; I’m 33 now and I have no idea what’s going on, but I think I’ve moved on from the angst.   It does tend to lessen the impact of lyrics.  I can’t listen to a clever phrase now and think “yes! That’s me!” like I used to.  Perhaps this is why we gravitate towards other musical styles as we get older.  Perhaps stability in our personal life calms down the angst neurons.

————————–

“You say the magic’s gone but I’m not a magician
You say the spark’s gone well get an electrician”

Indeed.  Sometimes problems are just there and can’t really be solved.  You just have to ride them out.  I’m reading Sidetracked by Henning Mankell at the moment, and Kurt Wallander, the main detective, has just reminded himself to let his thoughts breath, to be patient with them, to see what they turn into.  This seems wise to me.

Massive Attack vocalists include:

Shara Nelson
Tricky
Liz Fraser (from the Cocteau Twins)
Martina Topley-Bird
Sinead O’Conner
Dot Allison
Horace Andy

There’s some serious singing there.   Alright, Tricky doesn’t sing, he mumbles, but you’ll know Liz Fraser’s bits from Mezzanine, when she did Teardrop and others.  Martina Topley-Bird is the female vocal on Tricky’s unbelievable Maxinquaye album, and a solo artist in her own right.  Dot Allison isn’t what I thought she might be, but she wrote Tomorrow Never Comes, which is quite good.

In 2002 I had a bootleg Juliana Hatfield CD which contained this song performed live, and it was too moving.  Hade and I had just split up, my life was a mess.  I listened to this and felt even sadder.  Wallowed.  I had stopped listening to music before we broke up.  Afterwards I did little else.  What was I saying about a lack of angst?  Ha.  Nothing much changes I suppose.  Still a soppy bastard at heart.  And now - we’re back together - I listen to music all day at work, and during the commute both ways.  My ears are surely doomed.

————————————

“What have I… What have I… What have I done to deserve this?

We live in a flat below a man whose musical tastes stopped evolving in 1989.  He listens to a lot of Duran Duran.  Sometimes he jumps ahead to Coldplay, but mostly it’s 80s crap.  It pounds through our ceiling, and usually we ignore it.  But the rule is that if I can make out what the song is (rather than just hearing an annoying bass-line) I whack the ceiling with a baseball bat.  Then he plods forlornly across the floor above and turns it down.

We’re constantly worried that he’s only doing this because *we’re* too loud.  I don’t think we are, but it is possible?  We need only to get out of bed in the morning and he turns his radio on.  Sometimes I get up in the night. His radio’s on then too, audible through the ceiling.  Luckily we sleep in a room which juts out beyond his flat, so in this one part of the flat we are guaranteed peace from his dirge, but still.  Why is he like this?

The obvious answer would be to ask him, to talk things through like grown ups, but we avoid him and he avoids us.  There have been too many baseball bat whacks now.  It would be uncomfortable.  The relationship is broken.   But still he plays Duran Duran too loudly.  Perhaps the music of Duran Duran means as much to him as the music of Juliana Hatfield means to me.  Perhaps he once loved a girl called Rio.  Perhaps he once had a goldfish called “The Reflex”.  Perhaps he’s just an idiot.

————————————-

I once listened to John Coltrane’s “Blue Train” all night on repeat during a Dublin thunderstorm.  It was a Friday and I couldn’t sleep.  It was like being transported to another world.   It required the rain to come at a special angle to really ram my windows.  It required thin windows for maximum ratter-tatter-tattering.  It required an inspired choice of CD and a strange life stage where nihilism and narcissism were at dreadful but quite enjoyable peaks.   I’ve never had that same feeling before or since.  I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.

————————————-

As I type this Jim Morrison is warbling away behind me. “When the music’s over” he sings, “turn out the lights”.    Too true, Jim, too true.

      

Inspired by a posting on TiFF, here’s something interesting.

We’ll expect more shots to be on target as the season wears on, but the conversion of said shots into goals isn’t necessarily an outlier.   I’d have put money on teams being more bunched on this than they are, but not so:  you can be bad at shooting all season.   So while Hull and Stoke have benefitted this year and Man Utd and Spurs are struggling (suggesting that this is not all about skill) Birmingham and Reading kept up a good ratio all last season.  Which suggests that Brum and Reading were either lucky with their shooting all year or went down because of their defence.  Either way, this is something we need to be wary of.

Will a defensive midfielder fix this?  Surely not.  No, there’s a good suggestion that, to whatever extent our start has been ‘difficult’, this has not been because of our defensive play.   We need to make and take chances.   Which is why I want Dempsey and Gera in the side.   But that’s an argument for another day.

      

The bookies generally know what they’re doing. I don’t want to oversimplify, but I believe the following is a fair argument for calming down. For each game you can see the decimal odds Ladbrokes gave for each outcome (thanks to Football Data for the info.)

Oh look, we’re exactly where they expected us to be.

Sure there are problems, but did anyone honestly expect there not to be?  That’s football.  If you’re going to lose games (and we are) then you’ll make mistakes, be less than perfect.

I’ll do a full post in the near future looking at some of the perceived issues, but in my opinion we’re almost doing alright. Could be better, of course, but there’s a long way to go.

      

Another poor result and rather meek surrender away from home. The ‘Hodgson way’ with our pretty but enforcerless midfield is quite comprehensively not working on the road: that’s now three defeats in as many trips, all at grounds where we should be hoping to pick up points. What’s more, it’s increasingly difficult to claim that we’re gaining creativity as a pay-off for that lack of steel in the middle when those three matches – four if you count Burnley – have yielded just a solitary goal.

The season is still young, but things already seemed depressingly familiar here. Just as at Blackburn, Roy Hodgson can claim that on another day things might have been different – especially if Zoltan Gera’s early side-footed effort had found its way an inch inside the post rather than wide of it. But there was a sense of urgency and (dare one say it) ‘passion’ missing from this performance, and we were only shaken from our complacency once we conceded. Although we did control possession nicely for periods of the first half, we did so as if we were 2-0 up and comfortable rather than being level at 0-0 with a game to fight for.

Indeed for the opening hour, there was something stagnant and complacent about our play befitting a group who had previously played 180 minutes of Premiership football without a single substitution to shake things up; the manager proclaiming himself ‘reasonably satisfied’ with the previous two performances despite their lack of success. It was perhaps unsurprising that Clint Dempsey, the only (enforced) change to the line up, was our most lively player, and that Seol provided a similar injection of energy when he came on for the last twenty minutes. Both players have their faults, but both looked as if they wanted to be out there to prove their worth. By contrast, Jimmy Bullard was often quite woeful – ponderous and careless in possession – the performance of a man who does not fear for his place.

West Brom’s goal came in their best and only real period of pressure at the beginning of the second half, and was a mess. After Danny Murphy had desperately headed off the line, the resulting corner was not properly cleared and amidst the goalmouth scramble, Roman Bednar poked the ball under Schwarzer’s body. Thereafter – aided by Seol’s introduction – we woke up somewhat and at least threatened an equaliser. Danny Murphy came close with a deflected effort after Bullard’s cleverly disguised free-kick; Dempsey should have done much better with a free header; Seol curled a shot just wide. But then time ran out. Bednar had been closer to making it 2-0 when his pile-driver surprised Schwarzer and grazed the crossbar.

The fans, bored and frustrated by what they saw on the pitch, attempted to entertain themselves with a continuous and amusing rendition of ‘Seol!’ to the tune of Spandau Ballet’s ‘Gold’. I heard many an angry voice unhappy with Bullard’s performance and there was unrest when Hodgson brought on Stoor and Andreasen near the end, rather than adding a third striker in Nevland. The sheen gained by Hodgson during the great escape is quickly wearing off amongst the supporters – understandably so. If we continue without any away form to speak of, another relegation battle surely looms.

      

Thank God its only October. Because after tomorrow Fulham could, albeit unlikely, drop to 19th position. Which is shocking reality considering the quality of play the club displayed at the opening gong. Nothing was to come of Hull City, I knew that. But Arsenal was no aberration. The comeback against Leicester was epic. Bolton was easily [...]

That’s four defeats in a row.  Three of them close games away from home, one odd game at home, but nothing to show for any of them.  And now two weeks to stew on it all.

I think we’d all hoped for a better season, and while the night is still young, the points are not yet on the board.   As we know only too well, if you start a season badly it can be hard to make up ground later on.  Put another way, we need to start winning soon.

Which we may well do.  Andy Johnson was missing here, and is expected to be one of our more influential players this season.  When he returns and hits his stride things could be different.  Let’s hope so.

Today the whites replayed previous frustrations, solid enough at the back, neat in the middle, slightly ragged up front.  At times it made us look the better team, particularly in the first half, but again we have finished a game without unduly troubling the opposing goalkeeper.   This lack of spark up front is worrying, a team built as we are built ought to be able to fashion chances.

There were some opportunities today:  Dempsey hit three or four 20 yard drives that could have been dangerous; the same player headed over when well placed in the second half; Gera had a half-chance that he narrowly missed; Bullard had a couple of free-kicks.  All chances from which goals could come, but nothing clear, nothing dangerous.  I expect more from this midfield.

The defence was again reasonable.  The goal, coming in the second half when Albion were rampant, was a messy concession, a corner not cleared, bodies everywhere, stabbed finish. But they all count don’t they?  West Brom’s greater purpose in the second half, their greater passion, it all added up and they probably deserved to sneak the points.

So another day, another away defeat.  There is a fine line between pragmatic adherence to sound principles and stubborn clinging to methods that aren’t quite working;  Roy will doubtlessly be having a good think about this over the next two weeks.

(Jamie’s at the ground and will be checking in at some point over the weekend.  He suggested “so far, so Blackburn” at one point, and was proved correct)

      

Oh. Dear.

Audio here.

(Lots of swearing)

      

We’re definitely not playing Andy Johnson (suspended) and possibly not playing Bobby Zamora (ill), so perhaps this will see Roy employ a slight variation on the previously seen 4-4-2.

Tony Mowbray has been in the press saying how he expects to station a man in front of the WBA back four to help throttle our midfield, and a man behind our midfield to take advantage of that wide, wide gap. All very sensible. We’re the away team, what do we do?

Who knows, but this seems like an ideal opportunity to try a 4-5-1. Dickson Etuhu isn’t ready, Leon Andreasen and Andranik didn’t set the world on fire against Burnley, but nevertheless, an approach aimed at stiffening our occasionally lightweight midfield seems like a sensible approach. The charts below are the Telegraph’s density maps from three 4-5-1 games last season. The players with red squares are the midfield ‘3′.

No real pattern there, except that the midfield is obviously reinforced numerically. I don’t recall this helping especially during the games in question, but there’s no doubt that extra people in the middle of the park should be helpful, especially against a team like West Brom who will try to pass the ball around. One thing that strikes me about the above is that the extra midfielder isn’t really ’shielding’ as such, more joining in with everyone else. Probably a personnel issue (we don’t have a natural shielding player) but quite interesting nevertheless. Certainly Andreasen runs around like a dog just released from its lead. Indeed, Danny Murphy was the deepest of the midfielders when we played this way.

I don’t know what any of this means, and Roy’s current approach seems to be that we should play the same way every week and back ourselves to do this at a level conducive to getting a result, but perhaps tomorrow’s circumstances dictate some minor shift in policy. We shall see.

      

Stoke Reserves 2-2 Fulham Reserves

FULHAM: Stockdale, Stoor, Anderson (Briggs 83), Leijer, Smalling, Milsom, Brown (Saunders 90), Andranik, Smith (Hoesen 70), Nevland, Gray. Subs: Foderingham, Brown (gk).

He didn’t score a hat-trick or anything though.

Nice to see Danny Hoesen’s name there.  I think I’m right in saying that this is his first ‘competitive’ outing for the club, something to do with international clearance.

Finally, nice to see a proper reserve team isn’t it?  Say what you will about Roy, but he’s whipped the club into shape quite nicely.  I mean, sure, in an ideal world you’d want better players thoughout the system, but we’ve come a long way in a short time.   I last saw the reserves a couple of years ago and didn’t know who anyone except Bjorn Runstrom was.    Now the side’s being used to get the promising youngsters a game, and to get the fringe players match action.

      

I posted this some time ago, but I was reminded of it again recently by the terrific USS Mariner baseball site.  So:

Jimmy Bullard’s saying the same thing today really:

We lost last Saturday but I thought we were unlucky, we had a crazy five minutes but it happens. We had a right old go in the second-half and overall I don’t think we can be too disappointed with the way we played. You’ve just got to keep playing and believing

I think that’s a sensible approach to a long season, and one that we’ve heard from Roy over and over.

He also says:

“You’re not going to win the league after five game and you’re not going to get relegated after five. People can make mountains out of molehills either way.

“But that’s football nowadays and that’s what people talk about. You’re never going to get anything in the middle, its either good or bad – that’s why people listen to phone-ins or buy the papers because it’s a good read. No one wants to talk about middle ground because no one would want to read about it.

This is my perspective entirely.  But it sometimes feels like I’m in the minority.

      

Villa, home: subbed after 70 minutes, lone striker, replaced by McBride.   We scored almost immediately after he went off, then added another later on.

Boro, away: subbed after 64 minutes, lone striker, replaced by McBride.  Not much happened for us that day.

Man Utd home: on in 91st minute in a game we’d lost horribly.

Reading away: on in the 83rd minute, scored in the 90th.  A game we’d dominated but not put away.  Nevland made it safe.

Liverpool home: on 76, bad game for Fulham, lost 2-0, can’t remember any impact.

Man City away: on 71 for McBride, straight after we’d scored a goal (seems unlike Roy doesn’t it?).  Hauled down for equalising penalty.  We scored again in the 90th minute.

Birmingham home:  on 67 for Kamara, scored 87 to seal win.

Portsmouth: on 72 for Dempsey, we scored in the 76th minute to win 1-0.

Hull away:  on 85, 2-1 down.

Bolton: on 85, 2-1 up.

(also Leicester in the cup when he scored but was offside)

It’s a pretty decent track record so far.  Noteworthy that he’s started twice and been fairly invisible (not entirely his fault), then come on as a sub and done well.    It’s hard to know the extent to which he was the beneficiary of a team hitting its stride or whether he was a vital part of that team hitting its stride.   I think it’s fair to say that he did his bit.

Roy’s sub patterns much more varied, although I guess with McBride coming back to fitness this was a clear need, and Kamara got a couple of knocks I seem to recall.  The Portsmouth sub (on for Dempsey) was a fairly attacking move.

In summation, you shouldn’t really read the above and spontaneously combust over his lack of use this year.   He’s done a good job when called upon but there’s nothing there to suggest that his absence is costing us dear.   One player simply doesn’t make that much of a difference, particularly a fringe player, however effective he might be.

My guess is that we’ll see more of Nevland as the season wears on, but that he’s unlikely to grow from his current role.   We’ll probably see the odd start and he might do well and he might not (just like most forwards!) but there’s nothing here to get angry about.

      

John Paintsil’s heart-warming words remind us that “Roy not making subs” is not the same as “Roy doing nothing”.

Playing ten against eleven against a team that is leading by two goals wasn’t easy for us. When we went into the dressing room, the Manager changed things around and we pushed forward, pushing the right and left backs more forward and that changed a lot for us.

I’ll do the Telegraph density maps later in the week, but from them it’s clear that Simon Davies was operating as a second forward, playing, in total, further forward than both Zamora and Johnson.  Now we get confirmation from Paintsil that the full-backs were pushing on.   I noticed Paintsil roving in the second half, and thought he did that quite well, but Paul Konchesky worries me somewhat when asked to do too much attacking.

Paul Doyle of the Guardian has something about Roy’s subs too, incidentally.

That could be construed as an admission of the lack of his squad’s depth, and certainly the absence of a specialist left winger was punishing, though either Seol Ki-Hyeon or Clint Dempsey could reasonably have been expected to be more visible than the ghostly Zoltan Gera. Chris Baird and Toni Kallio may also have been more reliable in the full-back berths than the negligent John Pantsil and Paul Konchesky. But not “definitely”.

“Definitely” was the key word in Hodgson’s explanation. By using it he left himself open to accusations of indecision or excessive caution. If we reflect on a record of success that extends well beyond last season’s great escape, we may instead deduce that his refusal to gamble on a substitution attests to the strength of his conviction in his methods, a belief, borne of his rich experience, that if you keep performing well you will eventually be rewarded.

Fair enough, all this.  I think that, as usual, we’re slightly overreacting, but it’s a trend that does bear watching.   Roy must have purchased the likes of Andreasen, Andranik and Etuhu for a reason; I’m sure if we’re patient we’ll see them.

The main thing is points on the board, and we’re about par for the course at the moment.  No need to panic just yet.

      

From the telegraph, via the press association, who count these things impartially.  The talk of Seol not tackling is nonsense.   He does his bit.

He might or might not be a good player, but he is not the player people think he is.