Just spotted this. High praise for Bobby Zamora from last night’s two goal hero Clint Dempsey.
Bobby does a great job up there, allowing everybody else to get involved in the play. He’s a forward who will get a lot of assists for his team-mates, it’s great when he scores goals as well but he also gets confidence from his ability to bring everybody into the game.
I don’t mind playing up there as well, I had a few chances and I enjoyed it. But wherever the team needs me to play I’m more than happy to play – whether it’s up top or on the left.
Those comments are especially relevant in light of last night when Bobby worked his socks off to be a threat up front and bring others into play, before taking a hefty clout from Chris Samba and having to come off. His clever interplay helped Erik Nevland find space for the vital goal too.
Zamora nearly messed the Neveland goal up by playing the ball too softly, & when he went off, we managed to score two more – so he was not missed last night.
I understand players standing up for their team mates, but he is not as effective as he should be.
We weren’t bad because of Zamora and we didn’t thrive because he went off (Gera played much better than Dempsey on the left, for one thing). This Fulham team is what it is: a good team. People overemphasise the importance of one player and pick holes in those they don’t like (I can imagine us signing Xavi Hernandez, and some of our fans would moan that he’s too short or something). Greening had an off night, but Murphy had a lot of off nights too. It doesn’t seem to have hurt us too much, and huge credit to Blackburn in the first half for presenting us with a real problem. At that point Zamora was one of the few players in credit. Our two goals came when we’d re-established control of the midfield (thanks to Baird and Gera) and created a couple of good chances. (Probably) nothing to do with Zamora being off. And to say that he almost messed up in the buildup to Nevland’s goal… well that’s just picky for picky’s sake, it really is.
Not to beat a dead horse, but I feel the need to point out 1) it was more important that Zamora play that ball quickly than “hard”, as Nevland was zooming forward. 2) if Zamora wasn’t posted up on man-mountain Samba, screening him, Samba gets to Nevland and blocks the shot 3) Fulham scored two more because Blackburn started to press for the equalizer, and that opened the game up.
Dempsey stood up for his teammate because that was a team goal.
I thought Bobby did well last night on the whole. For a fairly woeful first 45, he was the only one in a white shirt who kept the ball and got things moving. He was a useful foil for our advanced midfield in the second half and was just getting some joy when he was forced off through injury.
It’s worth pointing out that Nevland’s still such an enigma. I thought he had a very poor first half, largely ineffective and a disappointing first touch, and then he pops up and scores a lovely goal.
I’m a fan of Erik, but I think the Roma sending off has affected him. Based, admittedly, on what I saw on a dodgy internet stream of the match, it looked to me like Erik was very reluctant to tackle. I’ve said before that he has a history of poor tackles which look bad. Maybe he’s now trying to eliminate that from his game, with the initial result that tackling is now almost absent from it.
He made one wild lunge near halfway in the first half as the ball was getting away from him and got a kick for his troubles. Just as I was about to turn to my friend and suggest Hodgson should substitute him at half-time, he popped up with the opening goal.