Timmy’s found some more praise for Roy Hodgson over at Football365:
Fulham
The success story of the season? The Manager of the Year Award for Roy Hodgson? Exploits of Fulham’s kind don’t make for great headlines or tabloid recognition but what they have achieved this season in maintaining their mid-table competitiveness at the same time as securing a date with Juventus in the Europa Cup with a medium-sized squad is outstanding. To put their draw at Sunderland, made just three days after their encounter against Shakhtar Donetsk in the Ukraine, into some context, it was their 44th game of the campaign whereas the home side have played just 32.
Hodgson has obviously done a great job from us, but some criticism is due for his handling of away matches.
Yes we had just come back from a long trip with a superb result, but:
1. Almost all of our prem away games are the same, go in and defend with little attacking intent. We are very good at this, and gave Sunderland little on Sunday.
2. We were playing a team which is in a terrible run of form and there for the taking.
3. There were at least 5 players who could have come in and played the same defensive game – Riise, Smalling, Greening, Elm and Okaka. Duff and Murphy certainly looked like they needed a rest.
4. Given point 3 and inserting fresh legs, why didn’t we take the game to Sunderland. We don’t need the points, won’t finish in the top 8 and won’t go down, so how about doing something about our woeful away record. Gordon didn’t have much to do the whole game. When we have to win away (e.g. Basel) we look a different team attacking the opposition.
5. 4 big games coming up, surely some of our major players could do with a rest. Duff, Murphy, Zamora, Hughes / Hangeland, Gara/Davies.
6. Lets face it most of our away games are pretty boring to watch.
To take your points in turn, Mr. Ace:
1. Think we’ve attacked in plenty of away games this season. Pompey, West Ham (especially), Man City, Burnley and Chelsea spring to mind.
2. I thought Sunderland played pretty well – they went at us from the start.
3. Smalling’s been disappointing for me in the league this year. If Roy had started Elm and Okaka over Zamora, TIFF would have gone into meltdown.
4. Presumably Roy thought that if we opened up, Sunderland could cut us open. In the circumstances, I was very happy with a point.
5. We don’t play again for another week. Roy likes to pick the same side when he can. I should think they’ll be enough recovery time for our key players.
6. I’ve quite enjoyed watching us away this season. We’ve certainly scored more goals and created more away from home this term than last year.
Chloe,
Guess we are going to disagree on this. 1 win all season on the road and that against a very poor Portsmouth side, who were worth a draw on the day (Zamora’s bum).
WHU – yes, and we seem to play more attacking football when down to 10 men
Man City – we only started to attack when we were 2-0 down.
Chelsea – we scored in the first few minutes and tried to shut up shop (maybe understandable given the opposition).
A. Villa, Wolves, Spurs and Bolton – played poorly
Stoke – had to go 3-0 down before we started attacking
Birmingham – didn’t see that game but apparently we were unlucky and played well.
Wigan and Burnley – we played ok , but consider the opposition
My point still is we had nothing to lose on Sunday, and I disagree I thought Sunderland played poorly and allowed us to dictate the tempo – which meant we stifled their play without being much of a threat ourselves. As for opening ourselves up – Sunderland probably have the worst record in the Prem since early December. We should have been able to beat them with a lot of our reserves playing (reserves who have done very well for us in the early European games)
Yes we have played better on the road this year, but in recent previous years we have a poor record. If we want to progress we have to improve our away form against the weaker teams and stop going away just to get a draw. 5 more away games – including United, Everton, Arsenal and Liverpool. Not going to get to much there . Unless we beat Hull we will probably end up with 1 away win.
Thought we actually created a few chances before City scored their two goals, but generally agree with your assessment of those games. I think we’ve played with a little more ambition this season than last (I remember a very defensive display at Middlesbrough late on last year) but am also disappointed we haven’t managed to muster more than one away win in the league.
Hodgson’s quite content to prevent the opposition scoring away from home, which makes it difficult to create too many chances. I think we’ve got a surprise away win in us somewhere this season – not sure where though – and we might see Roy remove the shackles as we get to the last few games.
I think I get the point but comfortable retention of our Premiership Status, Last 16 of the UEFA cup and Quarter Finals of the FA Cup. Our away form is part of these achievements.
Claiming my right to talk like an old fart. We are probably in the midst of our best two season ever. Irrespective of our away for.
Think Alan hits the nail on the head. To borrow a phrase from Roy himself, it would be a bit churlish to go overboard on the criticism of our away form when a) it’s improving and b) we are enjoying our best spell of success in the club’s history.
totally agree. If our away form was as good as people think it should be, we’d be in the hunt for fourth place. Is that realistic, given how much more money those teams have? I don’t think so.
Then again, I haven’t been going to away games this year. To give up money and time to watch some of these performances when you know what’s coming. That’s dedication!
Not sure that people are demanding top four away form, Rich, just a few more wins. I think we’re doing a lot better away this season and that it’s all part of Roy’s work in progress.
The thing to remember when talking about our away form is that it’s not exclusively a Hodgson problem. All our managers since we’ve returned to the top flight have struggled to win away, as previous ponderings on the subject show:
https://hammyend.com/?p=4800
Timmy and I were batting this about for a bit. As Dan says, it’s not just now. Most other teams who can’t win away would expect to have been relegated by now, but our home form kept us up. And, if we look at the league table, few teams can win away.