Was it as bad as it sounded? Please, someone who saw it or was there, find something positive to say...

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2001

Answers

As Perbloodyusual

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2001

Just called Screach. He will be doing one of his wonderful match reports in due course but his thoughts from the pub were that:

1) We were purely shite and gave a typical London performance.

2) We were second to every ball in midfield. He thought Rob Lee was cack (although I gather there were some differences of opinion there).

3) Bellamy got booked and now faces a suspension. However, he wasnn't that bad.

4) The corner that they got for the third may not have been a corner but that Given and our defenders were stranded anyway.

5) The pen was a bit dubious.

6) Robert played for the last 5 minutes.

7) Shearer wasn't that bad and struck his pen well but just couldn't get to the rebound.

8) The defence were shocking. It was apparently O'Brien's error not Elliott's that led to the first goal. None of them had a really good game.

9) Apparently our goal came from a Hughes cross.

10) The best enterainment came from the streaker.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2001

Just saw BR interviewed on Sky, he was pretty philosophical and said we'd beat the 'jinx' eventually and anyway he didn't believe in jinxs. Nice little video clip of him and Clarky arm in arm. Also Shearer appears to have swapped shirts with someone at end, Clarky again?

Still annoyed but calming down.......slowly. Out to get hammered shortly so that should help.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2001

Philosophical? He should be bloody raging.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2001

Know what you mean but maybe he is with the players. Who knows.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2001

Hmph is all I can say.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2001

Can't see it myself Lynda. I'd love to think so but its easier to imagine a shrug of the shoulders, some 'that's football' chestnut and a 'better luck next time, lads' speech. In his interview (as I've read) he mentioned our first 20 mins, their 'wonderful' first goal and the fact that poor wee Alan was robbed of a second penalty.

No mention at all of the complete lack of organisation in defence, ball winning in the midfield or general fight/balls/will to win in the team as a whole.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2001

BR was quite upbeat when interviewed on Metro - said he thought we had contributed to a good game, and that their first goal was decisive. He felt we had competed well against a good side.

Perhaps he isn't as ambitious as we are!

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2001

We did draw 1-1 in the second half.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2001

What a day. Got up in the dark, left in the dark and got back in the dark. And apart from the drive and the oub, the rest of the bliddy day was darkness personified. I'm not a happy chappie. After making "somewhere in north Northumberland" to Hendon railway station in somewhat rapid time, I made my way to Kings Cross to meet the offsprings and then on to Putney Bridge to meet a colleague before heading to the Duke's Heed where Gav (minus hi bliddy hat), Dan, and Mysterious Terry (aka Dr Bill's twin brother) and their mate (who's name I forget - sorry) were waiting. Canny gathering, with DSS, Donna (or was it Shagga or was it both of them?) plus a lot of other old faces (mine included).

After some liquid refreshment, a stern look towards Dougals least favourite Lahndaan landmark and a brisk walk over the Thames (using the Bridge) took us back into the Borough of Fulham where Craven Cottage appeared like a Victorian Museum at the end of the park. Stepping through the turnstile was like stepping back in time - about 35 years or more. I expected a gadgie to be handing out a set of National Trust headphones to everyone. Hardly surprising every Fulham supporter I spoke to thought SJP was fantastic ;-)

The game saw us line up as we did against Villa. Fulham had old Frogs Louis Saha and Alain Goma in their starting eleven with ex-Toon favourite Lee "SMB" Clark on the bench. Saha received a warm reception from the Toon Army and Goma was constantly booed. Clarkie was cheered when his name was read out. We started brightly and I thought we were the better team in the first 15 mins, tho we hardly troubled Van Der Saar who has to be at least as tall as the floodlight pylons (remember them???). Slowly and predictably, we let Fulham off the hook - Shearer sending a poor looping header over the bar, tho why the ref didn't give a foul for a push on Goma, who nearly ended up in Hammersmith, I do not know. Bellamy got the better of Goma but electing to go it alone with Shearer and Robert waiting, almost unmarked in the box. VdS smothered the ball and set a quick break going and an innocuous looking diagonal ball was played towards our box. Instead of (a) heading back to Shay or (b) leaving it to go for a goal kick, Robbie Elliott (tho Gav said it was Andy O'Brien and as Gav was much closer than me in the home end, it probably means he wasn't watching) simply headed the ball straight at Saha. With Shay half-expecting the back pass, he was stranded in neemans land and Saha had time to pick his spot and place the ball over Given into the empty net.

Things didn't improve much, tho I thought we still were looking the better side. I don't know who was supposed to be doing what in defence, but none of them was and the ball was slotted through a gaping hole (where Robbie Elliott should have been) to Legwinsky who fired past Shay. Two bliddy shots on goal and they were 2 up. Bah!

Despite nobody having a particuarly good game, YBR refused to bring on any subs after HT. The only change I could see was Bellamy dropping back to MF with Robert moving up front with Shearer. Well, he could have gone shopping in Harrods for all the use he was. The words "flash" and "pan" are starting to come to mind. Please French-Bob, prove me wrong. If this is how you repay YBR for giving you time off to go to see you family, I suggest you try Whitley Bay next time.

Mind, he wasn't alone. MF was cr@p (about the same as the defence). Fulham were simply hungrier, sharper and more up for it. We lost every 50-50 and many challenges resulted in a Fulham player looking like he needed the last rites before making a more miraculous recovery than Lazarus himself. It really p!$$ed me off, no more so than Saha. Of course, the ref took it all at face value and booked just about everybody on wor team and hardly any of them - to$$er.

Despite that, we go a lifeline when Hughes fired over a head-high cross and Speed rose unchallenged to heed the baal into the bottom corner. That's more like it - now howay! But no. Monsieur Tiggywinkle immediately took off Joan Collins and replaced him with Makemland's least favourite player. And what a tremendous reception he got. So what did the b@st@rd go and do? Got them a corner (which was disputed by the lass behind me) and from the resulting kick, we were at sixes and sevens. The cross came over to the near post where it was flicked on to Hayles who had the simplest of chances to heed the baal into the back of the net. Bugger. Mind, I have to ask what Oirland's finest were doing at the time. But should I have expected anything better? After all, we were in Lahndaan. And to cap it all, we somehow got a penalty when Robert bumped into Goma, right on the corner of the box but just to cap it all, Shearer's shot was pushed onto the post by VdS with Goma bringing Shearer down as he went or the rebound. No penalty was given, which probably evened it up.

The game fizzled out, but not before a bit of crowd trouble in the standing section below me, culminating in a streaker leaping over the wall and onto the pitch. Although not up to the standard of "Private Parts" (or whatever its caaled), there's a fair chance he might actually be on the team sheet against Derby. His movement up front was good and it looked like he packed a canny tackle, tho we might anticpate a few hairy balls to cope with down the middle.

So, that was it. Yet more Capital Punishment. WTH did I bother? It was good to meet up with the BBS Lahndaan lot and I enjoyed my drive back. Sorry occifer if you noticed - I was just trying to escape :-(

PS. The ref was abysmal. By far the worst I have seen in a long time.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2001

Thanks for taking the time to do the report Screacher. At least that was enjoyable, even if the game was not! Let`s hope there is some serious arse-kicking going on behind the scenes.(:o|

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2001

We've once again demonstrated that we aren't good enough to dictate a game irrespective of our opponent's style of play. Villa let us play, we look good. Fulham shut us down, we look shit. No time on the ball, no runs off it. And here's the I-told-you-so: my concerns about relying on Shearer knock-downs for Bellamy were fully realised on Saturday - the worse it got, the more the flanks were neglected in favour of hopeful long punts, but Bellamy was forced to play so deep the whole exercise was futile. This was better than many of the abysmal London showings - oh, how I'm looking forward to Charlton - but still extremely shabby.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2001

Ever noticed that we always play cr@p after an international break?

IMO this is not coincidental - we appear to treat every such two- week break as the end of the season: the internationals come back slightly jaded - everyone else, staff and players, switches off and takes a holiday.

Who is it that believes we are good enough for those not away on international duty to continue working on their fitness, dead-ball situations, and ball skills, in order to retain their match sharpness for the next game?

In our squad that regime could have covered Harper, Barton, Griffin, Distin, Elliott, the Caldwells, Bernard, Solano (part of the time) Lee, Speed, Robert, Acuna, Bassedas, AS, Bellamy, and Luax2. Note this includes our entire first-choice midfield and front-line!

This is just another area where we seem to lack the professionalism needed to compete at the top end of the PL.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2001

The best run of form we have ever hit was when Bobby first came and we were playing twice a week, once in Europe, once in the league and then, after Christmas, always playing because of the Cup run. I hope we stay in the Worthington and get a Cup run to protect our league form more than the actual Cups themselves (also a Cup run helpfully deludes us about the team)!

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2001

I was livid at the refereeing while watching the game, 6 bookings for us 0 for them. But now that I give it some considered thought, at least half of our bookings were for dissent, for which, there's absolutely no bloody excuse. Are these players completely and utterly thick as pig s***? Has a ref ever in the history of the game changed his mind on a decision once a player has 'had a word' with him. Idiots to a man, time for YBR to read the riot act methinks.

Oh yeah, and Robbie Elliot? simply not good enough, the worst of a bad bunch.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2001

Yet again going a goal down (if anything a little against the run of play) seemed to instill negativity rather than determination. I'd be clutching at straws to claim we could have got a draw if a couple of things had gone our way (the penalty miss obviously being one), but sadly we were second best in pretty much everything we did. We weren't best placed to judge the midfield battle, as we (Gav, Terry and I) were on the home terrace, tucked into a corner, but we got a good look at the defence in the first half...don't know whether it's nerves or not, but to me they were just too relaxed. ie perhaps so nervous they were over compensating on trying to calm things down. If it wasn't nerves, they need some sort of ballistic device inserted where the sun don't shine.

Anyway, good day had, despite the result, and cheers to DSS for coming up trumps with the tickets. It was excellent meeting some of you for the first time, including Terry, Gav, Dan, Screacher. Hopefully soon to be repeated, although the Charlton game is out for me now.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2001