Possibly. Good article here in the Independent. (hat-tip to Pat at TiFF) Then, added Brown, there are players who are world-beaters in training, but not in matches. "Dickson Etuhu, who I had at Preston, was fantastic in training, but not so good in matches. Roy Hodgson [Fulham's manager] [.. Click to continue reading...

Excellent look at the WBA game. Click to continue reading...

Here's a recommendation that you simply may not ignore. "A Cultured Left Foot" by Musa Okwonga. (publisher's page:  http://www.ducknet.co.uk/general/title.php?titleissue_id=388 ) Okwonga is an Old Etonian.  I used to work with an Old Etonian, and he was at once bright, eccentric, curious, hilarious. Click to continue reading...

Dempsey to QPR? American international Clint Dempsey was the subject of interest once more, for a possible loan spell, but according to the Hounslow Chronicle the deal was shelved due to the injury woes of the R`s West London rivals. An R`s Insider told the Hounslow Chronicle: 'We need some extra firepower to make sure the promotion [. Click to continue reading...

Some decent stuff in the Independent today: Here and here We're number 5 in their debt table.  It's interesting how others have avoided debt.  Check b+w_geezer's series on Fulham Finances, incidentally, linked to in the sidebar. 5. Fulham Owner: Mohamed al-Fayed Debt: c£180m Wholly reliant for survival on Fayed, who would sell if he could recoup losses. Click to continue reading...

Proceed at your peril... On Tuesday morning one of the kids who gets my train had his usual ipod session interrupted.  He's a big lad, Michelin man build, an innocent looking face that's half-surly and half-bemused.  Looks like he'd be nice to his grandparents.   He was interrupted by a young girl, about the same age. Click to continue reading...

Inspired by a posting on TiFF, here's something interesting. We'll expect more shots to be on target as the season wears on, but the conversion of said shots into goals isn't necessarily an outlier.   I'd have put money on teams being more bunched on this than they are, but not so:  you can be bad at [. Click to continue reading...

The bookies generally know what they're doing. I don't want to oversimplify, but I believe the following is a fair argument for calming down. For each game you can see the decimal odds Ladbrokes gave for each outcome (thanks to Football Data for the info.) Oh look, we're exactly where they expected us to [. Click to continue reading...

Another poor result and rather meek surrender away from home. The ‘Hodgson way' with our pretty but enforcerless midfield is quite comprehensively not working on the road: that's now three defeats in as many trips, all at grounds where we should be hoping to pick up points. What's more, it's increasingly difficult to claim that [. Click to continue reading...

That's four defeats in a row.  Three of them close games away from home, one odd game at home, but nothing to show for any of them.  And now two weeks to stew on it all. I think we'd all hoped for a better season, and while the night is still young, the points are not [...] Click to continue reading...

Oh. Dear. Audio here. (Lots of swearing) Click to continue reading...

We're definitely not playing Andy Johnson (suspended) and possibly not playing Bobby Zamora (ill), so perhaps this will see Roy employ a slight variation on the previously seen 4-4-2. Tony Mowbray has been in the press saying how he expects to station a man in front of the WBA back four to help throttle our midfield, [. Click to continue reading...

Stoke Reserves 2-2 Fulham Reserves FULHAM: Stockdale, Stoor, Anderson (Briggs 83), Leijer, Smalling, Milsom, Brown (Saunders 90), Andranik, Smith (Hoesen 70), Nevland, Gray. Subs: Foderingham, Brown (gk). He didn't score a hat-trick or anything though. Nice to see Danny Hoesen's name there.  I think I'm right in saying that this is his first 'competitive' outing for the club, [. Click to continue reading...

I posted this some time ago, but I was reminded of it again recently by the terrific USS Mariner baseball site.  So: Jimmy Bullard's saying the same thing today really: We lost last Saturday but I thought we were unlucky, we had a crazy five minutes but it happens. We had a right old go in the [... Click to continue reading...

Villa, home: subbed after 70 minutes, lone striker, replaced by McBride.   We scored almost immediately after he went off, then added another later on. Boro, away: subbed after 64 minutes, lone striker, replaced by McBride.  Not much happened for us that day. Man Utd home: on in 91st minute in a game we'd lost horribly. Click to continue reading...