Fulham 2-0 Aston Villa post match thread

[CT Villan]

First half decent, second half an abomination. As I suspected, as soon as it opened up we got taken apart. Hoofball was our reply...shocking.

They were all pretty bad in the 2nd half, but Hourihane took the prize for being the worst player on the park.

[SoccerHQ]

That was rubbish.  Of course losing Albert and Jack was a blow but that team selection was utterly abject.

As I said though our attacking options on the bench were Davis and Grabban. Davis hasn't scored since I don't know when and Grabban hasn't started a match since December.

I'd have liked to have seen Green as sub but again he's played one game in six months.

Anyone knows you generally don't throw players in lacking match fitness/confidence away to other inform teams.

In any case when we did take off Jedinak and put Grabban on, Fulham started running through our midfield and scored the second.

What today does show is we really need to keep the key players fit for the run in. We may have numbers in the squad but we don't have much match winning quality beyond the regular 11.

We saw that in the cup where a similar 11 was put out and we've seen it today.

[gabbythelegend]

Yes, two key players out injured, away to an in-form and cleqrly decent side, but my word that was absolutely shocking. I don't even think the tactics themselves were too bad, but Onomah, Bjarnison, Hourihane and Hogan barely did a single thing right in the entire game. We can talk about factors and luck all we want, but an abiding law of football is that if your attacking players all have shockers, you're gonna lose. And that happened today, and some.

[curiousorange]

Didn't find a stream, but it sounded like long ball pap and a determination to draw. It didn't work at Wolves, or at Derby, or in fact most of the time. That's the most annoying thing - we played like we didn't start the game as the best of the rest and we got what we deserved. Wallop Preston, please.

[Toronto Villa]

Simply beaten by the better team.

Our line up was negative but ultimately we aren't PSG or Real Madrid. If we lose two of our best and inform players we will struggle to replace them.

It's alright people saying likes of Green and Grabban should've started today. Green has played one game since August. Grabban hasn't started a game since December.

Bjarni and Hogan have done well since xmas so those were two obvious selections unless I've missed something.

We've done well to win our previous seven so some perspective would be welcome although I fear that will be lost given some of the comments in the match thread.

There’s a massive, massive gap between between what we put out and Real Madrid or PSG. It starts with the manager being positive and confident in his players. It then extends to how he approached the game irrespective of the opposition. And then it gets down to his team selection. It was too negative. Like I said before, we might still have lost trying to win. But we never started the game trying to win. That’s what is annoying and is precisely the reason Bruce has struggled as a manger in the PL. He could have chosen to attack Fulham and he chose not to.

[SoccerHQ]

Yes, two key players out injured, away to an in-form and cleqrly decent side, but my word that was absolutely shocking. I don't even think the tactics themselves were too bad, but Onomah, Bjarnison, Hourihane and Hogan barely did a single thing right in the entire game. We can talk about factors and luck all we want, but an abiding law of football is that if your attacking players all have shockers, you're gonna lose. And that happened today, and some.

They're just not that good.

Onomah I thought was first good in his first few months here but he's struggled for a while now. Hogan is still limited beyond the six yard box.

Bjarni has done well but against a decent midfield who can play he was found out today.

Think how we've won our last seven and those players wouldn't really figure.

It's all been down to Chester, Terry, Hutton, Snodgrass, Albert and Jack being in great form.

[ChicagoLion]

What has happened to Ohare?

[Risso]

So many players were piss poor today.  Bjarnason and Hogan were both back to looking like they'd won a raffle to play for the day, and Hourihane being disappointing shows no sign of abating.

[Nev]

All trains out of Houston suspended as well, not our day really.

[SoccerHQ]

What has happened to Ohare?

Didn't he play against Peterbrough and struggle to impose himself?

[Pete3206]

You'd think Bruce had learned from the Brentford debacle, that you can't go to a team that is a quick, passing side and expect to sit back and be confident of getting a draw. Rubbish.

Have a fucking go at them.

[jwarry]

Problem is Bruce might be tempted to “freshen things up” on Tuesday Andrew we all know how that ends up!

[eamonn]

Euston, we have a problem.

[SoccerHQ]

Simply beaten by the better team.

Our line up was negative but ultimately we aren't PSG or Real Madrid. If we lose two of our best and inform players we will struggle to replace them.

It's alright people saying likes of Green and Grabban should've started today. Green has played one game since August. Grabban hasn't started a game since December.

Bjarni and Hogan have done well since xmas so those were two obvious selections unless I've missed something.

We've done well to win our previous seven so some perspective would be welcome although I fear that will be lost given some of the comments in the match thread.

There’s a massive, massive gap between between what we put out and Real Madrid or PSG. It starts with the manager being positive and confident in his players. It then extends to how he approached the game irrespective of the opposition. And then it gets down to his team selection. It was too negative. Like I said before, we might still have lost trying to win. But we never started the game trying to win. That’s what is annoying and is precisely the reason Bruce has struggled as a manger in the PL. He could have chosen to attack Fulham and he chose not to.

We and he has been otherwise we wouldn't have won our last seven before today.

Maybe I'm being a bit too simple in my analysis but I simply see two key players out, away to a very inform team who'd won their last six home games and I wasn't shocked by the team SB put out. Many managers in a similar situation would've done that.

It didn't work, it happens. We do need to bounce back very quickly now with Cardiff back in second. Let's seriously worry if we can't win our next few games.

[eamonn]

What has happened to Ohare?

Didn't he play against Peterbrough and struggle to impose himself?

He was played out of position and was central to some of our best moves in the game. I don't understand not loaning him and Hepburn out if they're not even going to make it onto the bench for league games. They are proven at U23 level, all that's doing for them now is maintaining their fitness. They need to be given a chance at our level or at least League One.