Marco Silva admitted that Fulham have fallen well below the standards they set earlier in the season after watching his side lose to Everton at Craven Cottage this afternoon.
The Whites went in front through Raul Jimenez’s header and dominated the first half but failed to take their chances and were punished by Vitali Mykolenko’s deflected drive three minutes into stoppage time. The Toffees scored twice in two minutes after the interval as goals from Michael Keane and Beto left Fulham well adrift of the battle for Europe in eleventh place.
Silva, who served a touchline ban after picking up his third yellow card of the season at Aston Villa last weekend, acknowledged that Fulham were the architects of their own downfall.
We have to blame ourselves. Simple as that. The first 30 minutes were like they should be. We were dominant and had some very good moments. We had a good chance from Alex [Iwobi], two good chances from H [Harry Wilson], and they are the moments that when you’re on top in a game, you should be more ruthless and clinical.
In these types of moments of the season, the decisive moments, you have to keep the focus and concentration throughout all of the game. We lost the game and it was our fault. For the last six or seven games, we haven’t been at the level that we should be. These types of moments, late goals, set piece goals, they have been taking away a big chance from ourselves to do even better.
Silva told Match of the Day that he was alarmed by the fact that Fulham have lost concentration and focus far too easily at the business end of the season.
“It is the story of the last three or four games. Goals have come from set-pieces. We have to be willing to fight, do our job well and we didn’t. It’s about concentration and focus. We have to blame ourselves because it didn’t happen before but it did in the last few weeks.
The moments that we lost the focus and concentration played a big part on the game. We have to correct the things which happened with us in the last three or four games. In these decisive moments of the season, if you want to be there fighting you cannot lose concentration.”
The players are on the beach!
Or maybe don’t pick Iwobi and Pereira. That’s another option to help the team.
If Ashley Young, aged 40, is defending you and as a premier league wide forward player you cannot take him on or even cut inside him then I’m afraid Mr Iwobi it is time to call it a day.
Silva got to take some of the blame end of last season the same . Everton were poor but sides have worked us out . We have to work so hard for one goal Everton do nothing and get 3 same mistakes, does Silva not tell them to defend clear your lines were not Man City never will be , hate to say he could learn a lot from Brentford manager
Abysmal all round. Pereira works hard but no end product and poor dead ball kicks. I would play Diop rather than Andersen. EMSR flattered to deceive .Sess in not a full back and should play on the wing. Iwobi is not the player he was earlier in the season .Jiminez had little support but worked his socks off and at least Wilson shoots. Good to see King and Godo come but it was far too late the same applied to Traore who was willing to run forward and take the opposition on.t too many players have gone on holiday already.Shame until recently we have had an excellent season
Anybody want to buty my Man City tickets – can’t bear it any longer
Are you up to it Marco? You persist with Pereira and Smith Rowe who’s contributions are minimal. Any fool can see that Adama is better when he has the whole match to get up to speed.
Bad result and we are not going to Europe!! The fact is the squard is thin and can not cope with injuries!!!.Need to let go three or four deadwoods!!!
This is how the season ends, not with a bang but a whimper. Squad depth still an issue. We don’t have cover for Robinson, as Sess is wasted at full back. Don’t have a second choice keeper capable of keeping Leno on his toes. Can’t understand how Diop has not been given more of a chance as I’m afraid Anderson seems to have lost what little pace he had. Whole team seem tired as we don’t have the luxury of resting players that a team such as Villa does. The injury to Muniz seems particularly unfortunate. Please don’t lose to the Bees as we’re bound to beat City!
He is unable to get his players to finish a season. Last season, we finished the last 8 matches of April and May with 1 win, 2 draws, and 5 losses. This season, we have 2 wins, 0 draws, and 5 losses.
This is not progress. We wimper home. This relates to team leadership, recruiting, and the roster.
It’s obvious why we can’t defend dead ball situations. If nobody in the squad can take one, then how can we practise against them.
There is something very basically wrong within the coaching structure that Marco Silva is in charge of and it needs to change otherwise we will never progress.
I honestly believed that we would beat Everton today but, most likely, fall short against Brentford and Man City. To lose today, however, only highlighted the glaring inadequacies at the club.
I don’t believe there is another manager who would not have dropped Alex Iwobi months ago. His performances have been so poor, for so long, that he doesn’t deserve to be on the team sheet. In his defence, he is not a left winger but that doesn’t seem to matter to Silva who simply continues to select him, week in, week out.
Andreas Pereira is, arguably, the worst set piece designate that I have seen at the club. We have one of the worst successful records from set pieces in the Premiership. Yet Silva has changed nothing.
Smith Rowe has not lived up to the hype that surrounded his signing in the summer. Yet fans, ever hopeful, believe that, somehow, Silva will “improve” him and turn him into the player we want him to be. He has had 36 games to do that but, apart from an odd piece of skill, it hasn’t worked out.
So, when I saw the team sheet before the game and saw all three were starting, that Silva, in the first of the three “cup finals” of our run-in, my heart sank.
I was pleased to see that Harry Wilson was, at least, starting the game wide right instead of the strategically awful position that he had been asked to adopt at Southampton and Villa. But I feared the worst.
Iwobi and Pereira, right from the start, were bloody awful and just got worse as the game progressed. But Smith Rowe was linking well on the left, pinging first time passes with pace and accuracy and there is no doubt that his cross for our goal was exactly the type of cross that Jiminez thrives on but which has been denied him for most of the season.
With Sander Berge striding through the Everton midfield majestically, things looked very promising. But, after that goal, Smith Rowe took a pass wide on the left and, instead of heading with intent towards the Everton goal, he put his foot on the ball, holding up play instead of taking advantage of the break and, eventually, passed it backwards. It was as if, now that we had the lead, he thought his work for the day was over.
David Moyes gave a simple instruction for Doucoure to get tighter on Berge and for Gueye to assist him and, instead of dominating midfield, our Norwegian became a liability, being caught in possession time after time.
And that was that. Season over. They grabbed a fortunate equaliser that they did not deserve and, yet again, for the umpteenth time this season, we had squandered the lead and all we had left was huff and puff.
The pathetic corner sequence that we first saw at Southampton with Wilson and Pereira each faking to be the taker, re-emerged again today. Who on our coaching staff is responsible for this? Probably the same inept idiot that thought it was tactically sound to have Smith Rowe and Pereira mark two of Everton’s biggest players, Branthwaite and Keane at corners. Ultimately, we paid the price with their second goal.
Their third was another fluke and Leno has to bear the brunt for it.
But I have to ask these questions:
With Jedi absent today, clearly his injury is not something innocuous. He has now missed two games and had to withdraw from the USA squad. With Castagne needing an operation that will see him miss some of pre-season, he, too, has been carrying a serious injury. Why did Silva continue to play BOTH, especially when each of them was clearly struggling with form?
Smith Rowe, apart from a promising start, had settled into his pedestrian strolling that has been a mark of his season so far but Iwobi and Pereira had been awful throughout. One shot from Pereira almost got lost in Bishop’s Park. Why was Smith Rowe pulled instead of one of them?
Harry Wilson had EIGHT attempts on goal today. But for Jordan Pickford, he could have scored from, at least, two of them. Why was HE substituted?
Fans have been asking for weeks: What happened to Josh King? Ryan Sessegnon made a bizarre statement, mid-week, that King needs to stay at Fulham. Why? Was there some rumbling that the kid wasn’t happy at his lack of playing time? At Silva’s presser, he was irritated at the suggestion that King would only get a chance if other players were injured.
Then, shazam! The kid is back in the squad and, to boot, gets 7 or 8 minutes to keep him happy.
I have no idea if King is going to be the player that Silva says he will be. To me, he is in desperate need of bulking up to be able to play in the Premiership but any player that has the ability to take defenders on is something that we badly need. As it happens, it was Godo who impressed the most in his cameo. I’m not suggesting he is the answer but it seems strange that we had a natural left winger who has barely been seen this season when we have been crying out for one ever since Nelson was injured.
Bottom line, we are a mid-table team with coaches whose technical ability needs to be questioned. We have players -too many to name -who are simply not good enough to sustain a full Premiership season. We lack tactical nous in basic areas and players with the ability to carry out fundamental tasks. We lack a leader on the pitch.
None of this is new. It has been apparent for a very long time and the man at the helm, Marco Silva, needs to shoulder the blame and seriously ask himself if he can truly take the club further; whether, in fact, he is willing to admit his faults and make the changes that are needed or, as has happened throughout his career, his tactics and player favouritism have got him to a point where things simply cannot improve.
If he decides to stay, we need a clear out in personnel, an influx of quality and a change in playing philosophy and, if that happens, we might genuinely be looking at doing more than just settling for an additional point tally on our previous season that allows us to pretend that we are making progress.