PL: Fulham vs Arsenal | 11/09/04

sure, but all players do this... did you also notice that Lauren was all over the back of him as well?

i suppose it doesnt matter much though.. we won 3-0... good enough for me...

 

Cheers for the nice little summary matey, been busy at a wedding (no not mine!) this week so hardly watched any tele and not even proper highlights of all the match

Good to see Reyes do well, was talking to some of my cousins about him and boy are they jealous What a player, what a player. I think really think he completes us when he plays, he is someone who can murder most RBs and get in the boxes for tap ins.

Nice to see Fred doing well, after the 01-02 season have had a soft spot for him but he just isn't consistant so hopefully after this performance he can find some consistancy.

 

I was at the game and had a great view and Cole won the ball clearly..when he gave the pen i was like > :shock: what for????!! .Cygan had a good game today and yes Henry was well pissed with Reyes for not passing.He stood with his hands on hips for a good 30 secs looking at Reyes but Jose didnt even look at him!! he must have known the look Henry would have been giving him.Funny thing is though a minute later Reyes got the ball on the wing and clearly crossed for Henry..as if to say sorry Thierry,please score this one!!

 

pls give credit when due. Fulham played very well. We did a descent job..it wasn't about us having a bad game but fulham played very well. They were on us..all the time..didn't give us space and used their pacy forwards well. Was a good win for us. I remember when we scored our first goal..my thinking was "at least we will get a draw" this was probably the closest we got to being beat in a clean way(by being outplayed).

 

Tough game for us and you would have thought with our opening 5- 8 minutes that we would be all over thme and score at least one or 2 before half time but then their midfield and defense settled down and had us on the rack.Thankfully we remained at 0-0 until the hour when Jose came on and we really started to run things..a deserved win but not a convincing performance for most of the match.Now to the refereeing decisions.
I thought Fulham were unlucky to have their goal disallowed... about the penalty.. you could see from Andy COle's reaction that he dint think it was one either...fair enough to COle, had it been anyone else the arms would have been up in the air immediately, some might opt for a few roll overs and clutching legs etc etc.
We were denied a 100% penalty when Volz hacked Henry..it looked horrible on replay i hope Henry is fit for the CL game.
So all in all it balanced out.. Fulham were denied a goal and we were denied a pnelaty and they also avoided a possible red card for Volz because Henry was in a goalscoring position.
Vieira was terrible and i would not start him against PSV.. let Fabregas play or even Edu both of whom are sharp and match fit.
Pires was missing most of the game and my mind went back to what DOmenech said about him, although he wasnt so bad that you could describe him as useless.
Reyes..what more can you say , his arrival coincided with our period of domination in the game.. i firmly believe that with him and Henry on the pitch, it nullifies somewhat opposition attempts to stifle our play because they would have two men to worry about up front.
Dennis was good when he got the ball and set up Reyes perfectly.. i also thought Freddie could have done better with one or two of his through balls early in the game.. our first 3 attacks in the beginning should have got us at least one goal but hey you cant score them all .. brings me to Freddie who had an exxcellent game.. notice how his timing of the runs have come back all of a sudden.. very very good running off the ball and with a bit more luck he might have had more goals.
Still..we are unbeaten..100% record and two ahead of Chelski and 9 in front of the scum.
Of course the news reports will neglect to mention that we had a clear cut penalty disallowed and they will focus on the change of mind by Halsey and they will imply that had it not been for him our unbeaten run would have been halted.. yeh right.. if they were in front we would have seen Jose much sooner and with that much more time to impact we would have scored more goals anyway.

 

What the hell is wrong with you, Viera was fine. He wasn't fantastic, but he was doing a great job of winning balls and bossing the midfield - all in all a great first game back. He definitely should start.

I don't know why people are down are Pires, he was ok he was just denied the ball. Fulham worked extremely hard and stacked the midfield, and they obviously were trying to deny us the ball on the left. But they were tiring and we were starting to get a grip on the game even before Reyes came on. If Pires had come on for Reyes instead of vice-versa I think the same thing happens - it was just fresh legs and a weakening defense, plus the team as a whole finally shaking off the rust from the break. Not that Reyes wasn't good, he was, I just didn't see him personally "changing the game" as people seem to be suggesting.

Ashley won the ball, Ljungberg's saved shot was more of a penalty that Cole's. The disallowed goal was a ***** call, should have stood - I hate it when defenders are coddled by the ref. But Henry clearly should have had a penalty so it all balanced out as is the popular opinion.

And I just have to say that Henry and Dennis are ****ing magicians. Their technique and vision are ridiculous. Henry's close control is sick - Freddie's goal was all about the assist. TH MOTM for me.

 

Uhh.. there's nothing wrong with me... but everyone knows Vieira wasnt up to stantard and looked off the pace.. all i suggested was that he take a bit more time before he reintegrates back to the team.Check what i wrote.. Edu and Cesc are more match fit..Vieira isnt.
And about Reyes.. his presence did change the game because he became more of a threat than Pires, like you said fresher legs, i didnt imply anything else.

 

I thought Ash made no contact with the ball until after about 10 times of seeing it, i noticed he clkearly got the ball before taking out Andy Cole, the decision was right.

 

You wrote "Viera was terrible." Which he wasn't. He was winning balls all over the place much more effectively than either Cesc or Edu would have in his place. He wasn't as creative as either of those two are, but then he never is. He had a sub-par-for-Patrick performance but was still pretty damn good in absolute terms. I hope he starts Tuesday.

And I didn't imply you did. I wasn't talking about you. But "Pires was terrible" and "Reyes saved the game" are popular opinions floating about that I think are way off-base.

I was little disappointed that Jens didn't make the team of the week. Who watched the Man City game? Was James really that good?

 

yes i also think ashley got the faintest of touches with the ball but that is with the benefit of replay. when the incident happened, my immediate reaction was also "penalty". we got away with one there but to be fair halsey bottled it and should have given us one as well. the decision on disallowing the goal was correct. my reaction on seeing the incident was also "foul" since john clearly pushed kolo. on the asian star sports channel, one of the guest commentators said it was natural that when you go up for the ball, your arms will definitely go up and so the goal should have stood. don't know what passes for fair play anymore but to me a push is a foul. his comment was ridiculous. overall i don't think fulham were hard done by though it is unfortunate that we will be compared with that rabid manure pack that pursued andy d'urso a few seasons ago.

 

I stick to my conclusion that I thought Fulham were unlucky not to break our unbeaten run. If the penalty was awarded and the disallowed goal given, we'd be 2 goals down and will be under a lot of pressure.

Today, we won by luck. But that's the way of champions I guess. I remember Manure at this peak were like us. Winning even when they do not deserve to. And that's the way of Champions. The self belief. The confidence. The luck.

Anyway, John and Morte were constant torns in our shaky defense. While Lauren started the season well, in the last 2 games he really made some careless mistakes. Looks a little off the pace now. Have been caught napping a couple of times and his lack of paced showed. I'm surprise though cause I always thought he was pretty fast. And those clumsy tackles. Risky risky.

Kolo still solid. But communication with Cygan really bad.

Cygan, still doesn't deserve to wear the red IMO.

Cole was cole. Fast and contributed to attack. But still managed to get out of position a couple of times.

Midfield was soft. Really losing the midfield battle after a good strong 5-10min start. Pires wasn't really there and Paddy's not at his best yet (yes, lets give him some time). Freddie was only okay but made up for it with a great goal. You could practically hear the sigh of relief when he scored. And you could see how his goal just killed all of Fulham's self belief.

Henry was unlucky to get kicked. But he was involved with the goal.

Bergy didn't take as much command as he did in our first few games.

Cesc didn't have enough time to impress.

Reyes was magnificent. Keep up the good work.

JP didn't really make much impression as well.

Lucky win. I think Fulham deserved a draw at least.

 

i disagree. we won that one and thats why we have three points. our goals were not 'lucky', they came from brilliant attacks. the penalty claim against ashley cole was not awarded and rightly so. i thought the decision against colins john's goal was harsh, but then the volz foul on henry was as good a penalty claim as any and we didn't get it. sh*t refereeing i agree. but to assume we won the game just because of those (and not because we scored three goals) is just plain insulting to the effort we made.

the whole argument that if fulham went a goal up before half time that concludes that they could've gotten something from this game had that been the case is purely speculative. who's to say we wouldn't have scored five if that was the case?

 

First of all I think credit should be given where its due. Fulham gave us a tough match and if things did't go our way we could have been behind a goal or two. They definately were the better side at times. Vieira didn't have the best of games but he was still effective and I think his substitution indicates that he is still lacking match fitness. However to get that match fitness he needs games under his belt and his form can only get better. The same thing happened last season when he came back after 2 months, he wasn't at his best but after a few games he was back to his best.

Arsenal sometimes can't play the way we like to see them, but these are the kind of games that show that we are a quality side, having players like Pires, Henry, Vieira etc not be at their best but still win.

 

well said!!!!!