Okaka made his debut and looked useful, no excusing his miss but once he's bedded into the team i think he'll be a good player.

Shorey also made his debut and was rather good given how little he's trained with the players around him

Duff made the goal we scored and given the lack of movement in the centre of the pitch pompey must have had an easier time closing off our flank men than they should have.

Baird needs to be rested, this run of defeats has led to him putting in weaker and weaker performances. Morale seems an important aspect of his character and i think he'd come back stronger if we rotated him out of midfield for a spell. Also he isnt a midfielder, as far as im aware he played CB for Saints and has been consistently played out of posistion by us

Murphy is getting older and that has to be realised and a replacement found.Our exploits in Europe and the Cup has meant Murphy has played more than i would have liked, recently he hasnt looked as dynamic on the ball and struggles to make the impact he has before. If we could rest him then im sure we would but who can take his place at the moment

I agree Kelly doesnt seem good enough to hold down a regular place in our starting line up but he is a relativly inexpensive reserve and if paintsil had only missed a couple of games i think he'd have been fine but he has been pretty poor, though against Spurs he wasplayed as a left-back, which to mind is foolish

We definitly need to put in better performances but if we can build on this result there's no reason we cant turn things round. Optimism would be nice, we're in the top half of the table, still in europe and have an excellent chance of progressing in the FA cup
posted by fortressfulham - Thursday 04th February 2010, 11:44 AM got to be one of the most idiotic comments i have ever seen..fred..what match were u at son..ok..they didnt have the greatest of games and i appreciate pompy will count themselves unlucky that they didnt get anything out of the game..however there are many times this season where we have played really well, reaping no reward so luck evens itself out...this is a typical comment from a man who has been supporting fulham since about 2001..typical armchair fan who hasnt got a clue about real football and relies on championship manager for knowledge..with the injury problems roy has had to deal with the fact that we are still on course for a top half finish is commendable and if you are not willing to get behind the boy and want to constantly cristicise then i suggest you piss off to the blue side of sw6
posted by hodgsons_nephew - Thursday 04th February 2010, 12:02 PM Love it. Much better than my post mate

"got to be one of the most idiotic comments i have ever seen..fred..what match were u at son..ok..they didnt have the greatest of games and i appreciate pompy will count themselves unlucky that they didnt get anything out of the game..however there are many times this season where we have played really well, reaping no reward so luck evens itself out...this is a typical comment from a man who has been supporting fulham since about 2001..typical armchair fan who hasnt got a clue about real football and relies on championship manager for knowledge..with the injury problems roy has had to deal with the fact that we are still on course for a top half finish is commendable and if you are not willing to get behind the boy and want to constantly cristicise then i suggest you piss off to the blue side of sw6
posted by hodgsons_nephew - Thursday 04th February 2010, 12:02 PM"
posted by fortressfulham - Thursday 04th February 2010, 12:11 PM What was your problem with Duff? With Kelly not going past him the Portsmouth defenders should have silenced him complelty as it was he was probably our Man of the Match
posted by WeWonItOnce - Thursday 04th February 2010, 12:53 PM well said weoneitonce...i thought duff was probably our best player last night..made the goal and was a constant threat to pompy..i also dont think baird deserves to be singled out for criticism either..he did look a bit jaded but he has performed really well in place of etuhu..also thought he tightened up the back line when he replaced kelly at right back
posted by hodgsons_nephew - Thursday 04th February 2010, 1:24 PM Baird did look good at right-back, it might actually be his best performance in that posistion so far. Duff played well last night, as did greening, though Zamora was looking good and will hopefully continue the form he was showing befor his injury when he gets back to full fitness. Given we had two players making their debuts and have had plenty of injuries to disrupt the squad should we really have expected a breathtaking performance?
posted by fortressfulham - Thursday 04th February 2010, 1:45 PM Duff was once again an inspiration in an otherwise team who's perfomance lacked ambition,Pompey certainly had a greater desire to win,I am confused at Roy Hodgson's reluctance to include Helge Riise in the starting line up,his presence in the Europa games have ensured our continued participation in this competition he was also a great inspiration to the team when he came on as a sub against Aston Villa,I would also like to see more of David Elm
posted by Billyboy - Thursday 04th February 2010, 3:10 PM I like Riiser too, i think Hodgson might consider him a little lightweight for the prem at the moment and that introducing him gradually will lead to him becoming a very good player in the future.
Elm seems to have potential and i think he'll be getting more playing time from now till the end of the season as he now seems to be our backup for Zamora
Duff played well in the second half and has to be considered a very good signing by Hodgson, i admit at first i was dubious about buying him as he was so often injured for newcastle but im very glad to have been proved wrong
posted by fortressfulham - Thursday 04th February 2010, 3:24 PM Yea i rate Rieser, be nice to see him get a run in the team. Also fred what are you on we might be lucky to scrape 6points from the rest of the season? We catch Bolton sleeping we could get 6 points from the rest of this month
posted by WeWonItOnce - Thursday 04th February 2010, 8:46 PM To O'Hodgsons-nephew. I have been watching Fulham longer that you have been on this planet. In the first half only Shorey, Schwartzer, Hughes and Hangeland showed any class or determination. Everyone else, including your favourite Duff, was inept giving the ball away in evey part of the pitch. Okaka was straight into a new team so I don't think you can blame him too much but the rest were inept however you look at it, through rose-coloured glasses or not. If they were all so good why were the crowd getting into them? Until they tired and we secured our offside lucky goal, who looked the most likely team to score/win? And try to be honest, not just stupid and abusive.

"We catch Bolton sleeping we could get 6 points from the rest of this month" you are absolutely correct we COULD, but our away form is woeful, and before we scraped a lucky win against the worst side in the league by a distance on Wednesday, we had been caught cold by two teams at home as well. We COULD win all our remaining games and qualify for the Champions League, but on the evidence of the previous 6 games I think we might struggle. We desperately need the likes of Dempsey, Pantsil, Etuhu and even Gera back toute suite.

posted by Fred - Thursday 04th February 2010, 9:30 PM i dont think anyone here's suggested that fulham played well against portsmoutgh just that we werent as atrocious as you suggest. Yes Pompey had chances and we were lucky but i can think of plenty of games where the shoes been on the other foot. Given our recent run what was important was not the performance but the result. Our run of defeats included good teams and five were away. You state 'before we scraped a lucky win against the worst side in the league by a distance on Wednesday, we had been caught cold by two teams at home as well' I believe im correct in stating that our last two home league games have been against Villa and spurs both of whom are looking to finish in a champs league place and have better squads than ours by some distance. In fact our last two league defeats at home our Villa and Arsenal and given we have beaten ManU and Liverpool at the cottage this season i think we have reason to look at the postitive. I wont argue abpout how long you've supported fulham, if you say you've been a fan since the depressing days of old ill take it at face value, but surely you recognise how well we're doing and that we have every reason to believe we can press on up the table despite our injuries. Yes Boltons a tough place to go and itll be a scrap but if the team builds on this win we'll have a good chance. I think wewonitonce point was that we should be thinking positivly not negativly. We are tenth, still in the FA cup and still in Europe, as for a relegation scrap yea it COULD happen but so COULD us reaching Wemberly. Personally given some of the dross int he league and with this win under our belts im not worried about relegation i've had plenty of grim times as an ffc fan to stress about possible troubles
posted by fortressfulham - Thursday 04th February 2010, 10:46 PM actually having watched pompey play both live and on tv a think its a bit harsh to label them the worst side in the league, certainly they have the least poiunts but hteyve handed in some good performances many of which far exceed Hull, Wolves or Boltons. Obviously the final test is points tally and that is what i think your missing, we won, 3 points, onto 30 points already, some good games to get stuck into and the prospect of reaching higher up. Our recent bad run has been a combination of heads going down after defeats n tough away games, a truck load of injuries, and key players looking tired from the amount of games we've played thus far.
"im not worried about relegation i've had plenty of grim times as an ffc fan to stress about possible troubles" Well said Fortress, Fred if you rember the bad times like when there were moves to merge us with QPR surely you dont have the time to be bleak at us being tenth. Improvement needed for this to be another great season but plenty of reson to believe it still can be a very good one
posted by WeWonItOnce - Friday 05th February 2010, 3:07 PM You are both correct. Pompey play much better than some of the other teams, the off field distractions are costing them dearly. And yes, we are better placed than most. My original point was that their performances have just been getting worse and worse since before the Blackburn game and IN MY OPINION they were woeful against Portsmouth. It also seems AJ and John Pantsil are out for the season. Let's see how they go tonight against Bolton although even elsewhere on this site the expectations are low :
"Bolton are a tough proposition particularly at home where they have lost just once in their last 6 Premiership games. Fulham on the other hand are a pushover in away games having gained just 1 point in their last 6 away games. They have managed one Premiership win away from home this season, which was against lowly Portsmouth on the first day of the season. The Cottagers won 3-1 at Bolton last season but that was the only Premiership win in the last 6 visits. It is hard to see Fulham getting anything out of this game particularly in light of the horrendous injury list".
posted by Fred - Saturday 06th February 2010, 3:48 AM 3 months out from the end of the 2007/08 premiership season I made a $50 bet with my Wigan supporter friend that Fulham would survive and escape relegation. The team had been in relegation for 2 months or something and I made the bet purely out of faith and bleak hope we would escape. I still remember sitting head in hands at half time against man city, not over the bet but the realisation that we were relegated, who would have thought we would come back and win and go on to survive.

My point is, in tough times we'll pull together and grind out wins at home and hopefully results away. You gotta remember we played extremely well on Boxing day against spurs and were unlucky only to get a point, we then travelled to Stamford Bridges and were undone by an extremely unlucky own goal, but you know, losing at stamford bridges is generally considered unforgivable...

Moving on to a mid-week game away at Stoke City, another fortrese where even top teams are beaten and despite a poor first half performance and display of defending we almost managed to get a result (no penalty for Huth's HB). By this time the team are not only physically fatigued given they have played 2 games a week for 3 months, but also lacking confidence.

They travel to Accrington Stanley, didnt play particularly well on a ground that didnt favour our passing game, but got the result. We then travel AGAIN to Blackburn where a corner isnt cleared and samba thumps in the opener, before a dynamic Dempsey is desperately unlucky not to win goal of the month and equalise. He then gets injured and Blackburn find a sealer.

This defeat was the worst in my opinion as Dempsey who looked the most dangerous on the day got a long-term injury, this added to Zamora's injury severely hurt our attacking threat, which heading into yet another away game against spurs isn't ideal. We lose that and we're fully sapped of confidence so that even the prospect of a home game doesn't lift us enough to beat Villa who had what we don't, a consistent striker capable of scoring 12 or so league goals a year (yes I know zamora) Agbonlahor's class was the difference, which wasn't there for us.

We are now completely flat, we've lost half a dozen starting players, our top scorer over the last 3 years (Dempsey), as well as both our full backs and with Zamora still getting his touch back a win was all we wanted.

Injuries have killed us badly, fixture build up has killed us leading to both fatigue and injuries, but the players endeavor in most of the games during our poor run should not be questioned, we played 4 top 7 teams in our 6 games winless run, 3 away.

We should pick up more points against bottom half teams in the coming weeks and ease the pressure and raise the confidence of the team so that we don't only confirm a 9-12 table position but also so we push on in the FA Cup and who knows the Europa League.

Anyways, I don't think the team deserves half of what has been said, we're not a big squad and we don't have everton's depth who during a similar time could comtinue to push on, but the team has been unlucky and given a few more wins we'll hopefully be talking about a possible face off with Chelsea at Wembley.

Thanks 4 reading this far :)
posted by TIMMY4FFC - Saturday 06th February 2010, 8:43 AM I agree todays game will be tough fred, im not going bottled at the cost of the train, but we beat them 3-1 last year and with the win over portsmouth we need to go there believing we can get the points.

Chance of wembley yes timmy, wanting to face CFC in the final, not me i only do that in my drems where i hit the winner from 35 yards out. If we could get to a semi against a team we can beat and then face an easy final id love it. Agree with most of your analyss but i think Shorey will really improve our performances as we've obviously missed having a proper LB and i hope o'kaka will show his worth once he's bedded in. Hoping zamora gets back amongst the goals against Bolton
posted by fortressfulham - Saturday 06th February 2010, 1:27 PM Alright, I concede I was wrong to get so miserable, that's Fulham for you. That performance was inept, but two wins and a draw since, without many first choice players and without playing to their usual standard has me humbly apologising. They played well today against an ordinary Burnley side. I know they are ordinary because even Chris Baird, playing out of position at right back, looked totally in control. Long may it continue and I will shut up and enjoy the ride. :)
posted by Fred - Wednesday 10th February 2010, 10:44 AM i respect that fred. I agree Burnley doesnt mean we've turned the corner as they are poor but all signs point to the up. Hope you keep posting on the forum as we need as many people discussing stuff as possible and at least your views are interesting
posted by fortressfulham - Wednesday 10th February 2010, 2:47 PM