As fans, some weeks you are the dog, others, like today, you are the trees.

At ten pound a ticket, it was daylight robbery. I’m only the messenger, so please don’t knock me for trying to describe one of the least eventful 90 minutes of my life. Gordon, Hutton, Mensah, Turner, Ferdy
Campbell Cana Catts Richo
Bent Jones

These were the boys to take advantage of Fulham’s creaky away form, and their supposed jetlag from a trip to Shatkar wherever. On paper, we should have done them no bother, but Fulham do simple things very well, and it’s working for them. For the first few minutes, it looked like we might get the better of them, as we piled on a decent bit of pressure but didn’t manage a decent effort on goal. It was Fulham who got the first shot away, after six minutes, and it was downhill from there. While Mensah stopped everything that came his way, the midfield lacked any sort of creativity and therefore the front two were feeding off scraps – and there were precious few of those. In a turgid first half, Hutton managed to get himself booked, then Richo followed suit, as we failed to do the simple things. Murphy simply waited for the chance to dink the ball over the top to Zamora, and Zamora barged our defenders about. Could we not have tried that tactic with Bent? We did manage to work the ball well on about 37, but Jones fired way over. A free 20 yards out, and central, brought nothing as it bounced off Schwarzer’s legs/chest and away. Bent managed to get a shot off, but it was miles wide, and the half time trip to the lavvy seemed the highlight of the day.

No changes for the second half, but Catts went off after 54 (injured, or just shite?) following a thoroughly unimpressive performance. Bent got in another shot which went wide, and all of a sudden it got a bit lively as Zenden probed down the left. Sadly, that period of brightness lasted only a few minutes, and we lapsed into the mediocrity that we’d worked so hard to achieve in the first half. Richo had the chance to get us through but missed the pass with Bent waiting. Campbell manage the whole afternoon without getting in a cross in any shape or form, but we did get two shots, one form Bent and one from Hutton, into the side netting. Benjani came on for Jones (why not Campbell? I know he’s not a winger, but he wasn’t making any friends playing out wide) and knocked it about with a bit more purpose. Campbell shot over form a decent position on the turn, McCartney replaced Mensah with a couple of minutes left, and then Bent almost got onto a cross/shot from Benjani.

So, a thoroughly bad day at the office, and Bruce needs to realise that there are only so many square pegs he can hammer onto round holes. Fair enough, the injury situation hasn’t helped, but Ferdy is never going to be a left back - even though he was one of our better performers on the day. Defensively, we were sound enough – they didn’t score, did they? – up front we looked sharp when given something to work with, but the midfield was abysmal. Cana struggles without Cattermole, and today Cattermole had a stinker. Richardson doesn’t like playing anywhere that Bruce puts him, and Campbell, as I said earlier, is not a winger.

Get ready for ten seconds of MOTD 2 tonight.

Man of the Match? Zenden, although used out wide when a central role would have suited us and him more, tried his damnedest to get the game going, and Ferdy put in a decent shift in an unfamiliar position, but for me Mensah was the pick of a pretty sorry bunch

Keep the faith.

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