Fulham 2 - 1 Bolton Wanderers

Wow. We'll have some more of the same please. Granted it was against a poor and injury-depleted Bolton Wanderers side, but the football played was some of the nicest in the league this weekend.
I still wonder if Fulham have a soft centre, especially after the defeat at Hull, but Bolton tried their bullying tactics and failed. Danny Murphy was strong in the tackle and, surprisingly, Zoltan Gera weighed in with a few crunching challenges too, out-muscling the Wanderers in the middle of the park. It was no surprise that Bolton's only real effort (and goal) was a hoof up from the keeper which was nodded in by Kevin Davies. It was typical of Fulham to make hard work of a game they had dominated for so long, but fortunately they were at least 2-0 up by this time and had also hit the bar.
I guess many comments will be made about Andy Johnson's effective and encouraging debut, but the surprise of this game for me was the unveiling of the new player previously known as Bobby Zamora. Zamorandonna's goal, where a quick drag back took him past two players and allowed him to belt the ball in the back of the net from the edge of the box was a revelation and perhaps highlighted the fact that defences will be more worried about Johnson and perhaps give Bobby Z a bit more room in which to maneuver.
Gera was also impressive with a fine finish from the edge of the box and a header against the bar.
The Cottage was a bit busy this game, in glorious weather. It's the first league game in which the clappers weren't laid out for us, but the atmosphere didn't suffer too much. At half time I went to the little cabin next to the Riverside Stadium in order to buy a cap as it was so sunny. There was a light grey cap available for £5 - bargain. Only they all had security tags on there that the cashier didn't have the tools to remove. Pointless! The £8 black caps didn't have any tags on them, but were really horrible. I did without.
To cheer me up on the Thames there was some sort of weird river race with dozens of boats being rowed down the river, each one with different livery or flags giving it some. The Fulham fans gave shouts of encouragement (and abuse) but I guess that's part of the fun of being 2-0 up at half time.
So that's three home games and three wins. Last season it took until the middle of March for me to see three home victories (I was in Australia for the Reading fixture). Things are definitely looking up this season.

Jimmy for England

I'm starting to worry about the inverse power of this blog. I criticise Hangeland and up he pops to score the winning goal against Arsenal and keep a clean sheet. I have a go at Bullard and suddenly Fabio Capello picks him in his latest England squad! In comparison I laud Gera's skills and he has yet to sparkle in the Fulham shirt.
Bullard for England is a funny one, although it is an England squad decimated with injuries in the midfield area. He will be competing for a starting role with: Barry, J Cole, Lampard, Beckham, Downing, Bentley, Jenas. All depending upon how the game against Andorra goes, the 29-year-old might get his international debut coming off the bench. If that goes well he coudl even start the following game against Crotia.
I hope for Jimmy's sake he gets to make his mark as I doubt he'll have many better opportunities than this one.

Fulham 3 - 2 Leicester City

It was a pleasant surprise when arriving to this game to see that Woy had sent out a full strength team to face Leicester, who were relegated from the Championship last season, although for the first hour it was hard to tell which team was in the top tier and which in the third.
At one point Stoor (who I think with his very first touch in a Fulham shirt managed to clear the Riverside stand and put the ball in the Thames) lunged in on the Foxes' left winger, causing the whole Hammersmith End to go 'ooooo'. Fortunatly the winger stayed on his feet, but the referee could easily have taken his cue from the home fans and awarded a penalty. I'd never heard anything like it before.
The only other thing that happened of note in the first half was Gera opening the scoring on the left. From the Hammersmith End it was hard to see how the ball had gone in, so we waited until the replay at half time to find out. It was still impossible to tell. It seemed like a combination of a weak shot, a slight deflection, an out of position goalkeeper and time slowing down to a crawl for no reason at all.
Still Leicester shot out of the traps second half and scored two quick-fire goals which rattled the whole Fulham team. They all appeared to lose composure and got even worse until Nevland came on for the increasingly disappointing Seol on the hour mark.
Jimmy Bullard had an awful game, constantly spraying passes nowhere, but that will all be glossed over considering he scored one of the better goals I've seen at the Cottage to equalise with five minutes left.
Ish and I were settling down for extra time, only for Danny Murphy to pop up with a deflected shot in injury time to push Fulham past the Foxes into the third round of the League Cup. A trip to Burnley awaits.
I was a bit sneaky with this match. Knowing the Hammersmith End would not be sold out, I purchased restricted view tickets at £13 with the intention of just sitting somewhere else when we got there. This saved a whole four pounds for both our tickets, but as we had to pay an additional £2 transaction fee and a further £1 just to be able to pick up the tickets at the ground (which is nonsense when you think they post them out to you for FREE) I think we are about even.
First half we enjoyed in the middle of the Hammy with all the singing (it was quite a good effort from both sets of fans to be fair) but for the second half we decided to retire to our actual season ticket seats to check out the game from there. Despite the whole of H8 and the front end of H7 being empty, amazingly there was a husband and wife sitting in our exact seats. Given the whole section to choose from, they chose to sit in our seats! They obviously can't be that bad then.

Fulham 1- 0 Arsenal

Well I don't think anyone was expecting that. The strangest thing was that it wasn't a totally undeserved win either. Arsenal were nowhere near as good as they had been last season and Fulham were far better in a game with very, very few chances at goal.
That's not to say it was a rubbish match; it was compelling and contained some very tidy football. Arsenal didn't really have a shot on target and the winning goal came from a set-piece, which could sum up the game.
Our new seats are slightly closer to the action, which sacrifices a bit of reading of the game, especially down at the Putney End, but we no longer get the chill wind from the Thames!
The atmosphere was really top notch, helped again by the paper clappers on every seat. I do wonder if the club plan to continue giving these out, especially at the cost of 50p per seat, but they are no doubt effective and helped keep the Arsenal fans subdued. It was Col's first game in the Hammersmith End and he was blown away by the atmosphere. We'll have some more of that, thanls very much.
There were no dud performances against the Arse, even Seol managed to do what he was there for and head the ball a few times, but there has to be special mention of John Pantsil. The guy is already a legend in my eyes - he was throwing himself into every tackle and even did his own lap of honour at the end of the game. What is it with right backs at this club? They're all slightly mentally unhinged and great.

Great expectations?

Well, we're on the eve of the first home game of the season but the opening day defeat at Hull has taken the wind out of the sails already. Hodgson's curve ball of playing Seol Ki-Hyeon as a striker has thrown fans at the start of the season (including me) who was expecting Zamora and Healy/Nevland up front. Still the Korean has scored and Healy been off-loaded to Sunderland, so there is some logic to Woy's thinking. Hopefully.

With Davis gone as well and Woy dismissing Bolton's wooing of Bullard that should be it for now, only the manager has finally noticed that Fulham are missing a defensive midfielder, and have been since the sale of that nasty fuck Michael Brown. Where a DM will fit into such a packed midfield is anyone's guess, but after being bullied in the middle of the park by Hull last week, a fighter is back on the agenda. I did think that Andreasson and Andranik were bought for that very reason though. Clearly not. I hate to say it, but what about Robbie Savage?

Anyway for the new season:
Most Anticipated Player: Zoltan Gera. I reckon he could shine in the side and weigh in with some very important goals. He seems to have played a good pre-season too.
Least Favourite Player: This is difficult as it's practically a completely different side. In fact from the first game of last season, I think only Simon Davies is still starting. I suppose I am still to be convinced about Brede Hangeland, although he has been improving.
Season prediction: Last year I suggested 11th in the league with a quarter final appearance in the League Cup and fifth round and fifth round in the FA Cup. Talk about being over optimistic! So this year - shit I have no idea. 14th in the league would be nice. As for the cups, an empty stadium is not very empowering. Fulham's away form means that home ties will be necessary for a repeat of last year's predictions.