CRAVEN COTTAGE — In a week’s time, TV presenters will don their special tie, reporters will gear up for a long day spent on the phone from a cold car park and players’ agents will prepare themselves for something akin to Christmas – except this one hasn’t been cancelled: transfer deadline day.
Of the two managers on show at Craven Cottage on Monday night, one can expect to be a bit busier than the other up until an don that day. Aston Villa boss Dean Smith has already done plenty of business, shoring up the side that narrowly avoided relegation on the final day just two months ago with £75m worth of talent. Three of those – Emiliano Martinez, Ollie Watkins and Matty Cash – started to give his side a fresher look, something severely lacking from his opposite number Scott Parker’s line-up.
Perhaps Brazilian centre-back Marlon would not have started against Villa, but it was a blow Fulham could ill afford when news broke on Monday morning that the Sassuolo defender had failed a medical after a £13m move had been agreed. A former Barcelona player (three appearances) with 41 Serie A games to his name, it is easy to see why Fulham were excited to have got their man, until they realised they hadn’t.
Parker instead went for quantity over quality, starting three centre-backs after shipping seven goals in their opening two games, but sometimes no number of bodies can overcome reality: Denis Odoi and Tim Ream were two of Fulham’s regulars when they conceded 81 times en route to relegation, starting 60 games between them.
Michael Hector, a midseason arrival in the Championship, looked largely lost in between them. When Jack Grealish ghosted across the front of the defence and was put in to score the opener inside five minutes, Hector threw his arms in the air, baffled as to why Villa’s best player, the fulcrum of their attack, was not tracked. In fact he was left to his own devices. Odoi neither followed him or alerted Hector to his presence. He was more likely to get a shout from the endlessly vocal Tyrone Mings at the other end.
“Fulham made Aston Villa look like Bayern Munich,” Sky Sports pundit Roy Keane rather flippantly grumbled at half-time, which detracted somewhat from the nicely-weighted pass of John McGinn for the first goal or Grealish’s intelligent run to create the second. Either could find themselves in a Champions League team at some point in their career, which is significantly more than can be said of their opponents.
If Parker’s only problem was in defence, he would at least be able to tell director of football Tony Khan that Marlon, or indeed the next on the list after Marlon, would be enough to solve his defensive issues, but the midfield is hardly replete with fresh-faced talent either.
Tom Cairney, club captain and closing in on 200 games for the club, does not provide enough energy in midfield to deal with the movement between the lines, just as he did not in 2018-19. Both he and Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa seemed to be taking a “hands, face, space” approach to marking with McGinn the grateful beneficiary of some persistently socially distant midfield play. It was rather summed up when the two men in white clattered into each other in possession to an audible “oof” from both.
There were bright points for Fulham. A bright point, maybe. Joe Bryan’s deployment at left wing-back produced several crosses worthy of better than Aleksandar Mitrovic offered them. Even when Fulham did get the ball in the net, it was a petulant shove from the Serbian striker that saw referee Stuart Atwell rule the goal out.
It rather summed up Fulham’s night: a weak shot, a goalkeeping error and an ultimately self-inflicted anti-climax. Just three games in, they already may have a week to save their season. On this showing, they need a hell of a week.
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from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/346GwAW
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