Fulham v Aston Villa Match Thread

[Monty]

He's a thought..... When you have a striker who has statistically BY FAR won the most headers in the entire league, why not play with width, i.e. 4-4-2 and feed the bastard.

And how many times do we lose possession from these won headers? Our problem isn't that we don't aim for Benteke's head enough, it's that we aim for it too much.

Only from long balls for him to create knock downs for other players to run onto. We should be constantly aiming for his head INSIDE the box.

When he has more than one defender on him because Premier League defences know what to do with crosses. I agree that we need more width and one reason is the cross option, but it's not the only option and 4-4-2 just concedes the match.

[Matt Collins]

I wish we had a player that could pass the ball the way Berbatov did for that penalty.

All the people criticising Westwood, can I just ask what it is that you think he's doing badly.

We've only got two players who are looking to get on the ball and pass it forwards.

Come on then Bacuna. Smash this. Bit close for up and over the wall

Regarding Westwood-he rarely goes forward, rarely passes forward, hardly ever takes a good/different variety of freekick/corner. Can't beat a player, has no pace. I don't understand the support of him.

But why would you expect a holding midfielder to beat a man, have pace, or venture forwards too much? I think he's been looking to pass the ball forward a fair bit to be honest. As against West Brom, he's the only one who will pass it forwards on the deck under pressure.

[JUAN PABLO]

well that was rubbish

I saw that againt baggies so lets hoping

is Lowton on bench?

get him on , get BAcuna instead of Weimann ( hes been wank )

fuc knows whos on bench but probably a dull bench 

[Tuscans]

Get your West Brom team talk out then Lambo.

[Ron Manager]

He should have selected Weimann!. Absolutely convinced we are going to win!

[JUAN PABLO]

all my keys are packing up on laptop by the way ;(

[olaftab]

Yes we have not defended well the last 2 and a half games .

[Jimbo]

Out-thought and out-played. This has been as bad as anything we've served up this season, against a dire team. If ever a team really, really needs a break, we almost always oblige with gushing generosity.

[andyh]

Every time we get the ball, we are surrounded by Fulham players, hasselling and nipping at us, putting us under pressure.
When they get the ball, we stand off, stand back and let them play.
Westwood, and Kea, totally, utterly ineffective midfielders.
Tidy footballers, but ineffective midfielders.

[berneboy]

Tonev for Weimann?
Maybe Lowton for Herd with Bacuna in midfield.

[David_Nab]

I just look at this side, and too many of the players do not look good enough.

The back 4 cost less than £1mil ..there are times when you need to pay for quality and we haven't for a few years.

That's now 4 goals ..WBA ..Soton 2nd and 2 today Bacuna has been at fault for , Lowton should be brought back

[JUAN PABLO]

If we had a 100 million (as if) to spend in the summer I would honestly replace every defender we have and Westwood and KEA.

I would buy 2 wide men of real quality, a number 10 and a holding midfielder

Can lambert do it with £3 million ;(

[Tuscans]

Play Gab and Tekkers up front with Helenius in the hole....he got skills!

[supertom]

I just look at this side, and too many of the players do not look good enough.

Unfortunately they don't. We've ridden a lot of luck in recent months and we're in a solid position but lose a key player and things can change quickly in this league. For me I'm not sure Weimann (certainly in his current position), KEA, Westwood, Bacuna, Baker, Herd, Luna, Bennett, Lowton, Sylla, Tonev, Helenius, possibly Clark and perhaps Kozak are good enough.
Who in our side is a really good footballer? Decent touch and eye for a pass? Not sure.
We have a solid spine with Guzan, Vlaar, Delph and Benteke but as we see, lose Vlaar and the defence is a total shambles, and whilst Benteke struggles we look poor in attack. Delphy hasn't been at his best since returning either.

January needs action so we can cement our top half finish. If we don't we could conceivably fall back.

As for today. A good half time bollocking and I think we'll push on a bit, but we need to make changes. This game isn't over as Fulham look ropey at the back. That said, I don't think they're done scoring either.

[Nelly]

Towards the end of last season we saw Villa score some amazing goals coming from some excellent passing moves. I was hoping we'd see that develop into our style, but we seem to have gone a different way altogether. We no longer seem to pass it patiently. Weird.

Collymore really laying into the ref on Talksport just now. Saying he's ruining the game.