Posts Tagged ‘Gael Kakuta’

Sunderland 0-3 Fulham: Wake Me Up When…Wait, We Won?

Posted: April 30, 2011 by Kyle Bonn in Postgame
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This picture, of the scoreboard at the Stadium of Light, is thanks to Fulham fan in Sunderland @simco_ffc on Twitter! Thanks bud

Well that was one of the more overall boring matches of the year, but I don’t think Mark Hughes cares, and quite frankly neither do I. This match was a clear strategy, whether intentional or not, of defend and counter-attack, which doesn’t make for such exciting soccer but it worked out very well for Fulham. Fulham pull out the big win, and while I hate the phrase “3 important points” because let’s be serious, is there such thing as “unimportant points” (unless you are in 1st and mathematically have already won?) these were 3 big points because in such a tight table, this brings us within a point of Bolton at 8th, within 3 of Everton at 7th, and within 8 of Liverpool at 6th (who have yet to play this week). Also, this gets a big monkey off our back, as it’s Fulham’s first away win since Stoke City at the end of December, and those 2 are the only 2 away wins on the season.

Our bitter rival Carlo Ancelotti, after his controversial win over Spurs, had a gem of a quote that I believe sums up this match for Fulham extremely well. He said:

“A top club is more than 11 players.”

I think Mark Hughes absolutely buys into the same belief, and is one of the reasons he’s making a last ditch effort to keep Zoltan Gera at Craven Cottage. Well, guess who scored for us today? One by Gael Kakuta, and two (well, technically 1 but I’m calling it 2) by Simon Davies, 2 guys who have rode the bench for much of 2011.

The match was great from the start, with a brilliant lineup giving Davies, Kakuta, Gudjohnsen, and Senderos a chance to shine while giving Dempsey, Hangeland, and Duff much needed rests.  And it only got better.

The good:

-Simon Davies: Guy has been overshadowed the last 2 matches where he’s started both. First, he was overshadowed by the baffling benching of Zamora, and then he was overshadowed by a superb Clint Dempsey. Today was his day. His passing was perfectly on target, he had a few money crosses, and his defense wasn’t anything to scoff at either. He’s been stellar in the last 3 matches, and I think we can officially say Fulham has a logjam at midfield. Duff and Dempsey got the day off, but besides those 2, Murphy, and Sidwell who usually start, add Davies to the mix of guys who all deserve to start. Go back to Carlo’s quote!

-Mark Schwarzer: While he wasn’t really worked too many times, the few he was were great stops by him, with one beautiful stop to each side. He earned the clean sheet for sure.

-Gael Kakuta: Gotta give him some lovin here. He wasn’t mind-blowing by any means, but his goal deserves mention, it was a great job beating the defender.

The bad:

-Eidur Gudjohnsen: He was off-target all day, missing crosses and, in one horrible passing instance, completely blew a two-on-one chance when the match was still 0-0, sailing the ball over Zamora’s head. He has gotten 3 chances to show he’s worth something to the team, and he hasn’t done so in my opinion. Don’t forget, he has all of 1 goal in his last 50 appearances…

That’s all I really have in the bad section. The defense should get credit too, because they kept Sunderland from taking many chances at all, but part of that was also due to the fact that Sunderland had zero strikers, and it really showed. The midfielders up front for them seemed really out of place, and made a few moves that trained strikers would have probably done a lot better.

Man of the Match: Simon Davies. Like I said before, he’s been very good, but this was his official coming out party.

Moving forward, we have Liverpool at home next, and while we’ll have to play our best, we are certainly capable of taking a point from that match, if not 3. Then, we have an extremely winnable match at Birmingham City, and another winnable match at home vs. Arsenal in the finale. Arsenal won’t be really playing for much, and they’ve sucked at best recently anyways, so while I don’t think it will happen, it’s certainly not out of the realm of possiblities. Liverpool is next Monday so this gives a little more time for guys like Duff to get healthy.

Here’s some postgame from Mark Hughes:

“I wasn’t too happy with the first-half performance. We were 1-0 to the good but we understood we needed to play better in the second half to ensure we took the game away from Sunderland. Thankfully we did and we saw the game out very comfortably. Obviously the second goal was key from our point of view and I never felt under pressure that we were going to lose the game.”

“We haven’t had that many wins on the road and sometimes you can be a little bit apprehensive and try to protect what you’ve got and that can lead to a problem but we didn’t really demonstrate any tension in our second-half performance.”

“It was difficult for Sunderland, obviously they have got injuries and are struggling for strikers themselves. But even so, the way we played today, certainly in the second half, we would have gone away with the win.”

Fulham News and Notes in this Short Off Period

Posted: April 28, 2011 by Kyle Bonn in Club, Transfer
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With the drubbing of Bolton still ringing in our ears and a match coming up Saturday with Sunderland, it’s hard to get any in-between time.  However, there are a few things of note happening.

Apparently Clint Dempsey is pleading with Fulham in a politically correct way that he wants some rest this summer, and if Fulham were to qualify for the Europa League, he may not get that.  The Gold Cup doesn’t end until the back end of June, and Europa League starts at the beginning of July, so he wouldn’t really get any time off, which he would like.  Maybe he can be spared in the opening stages of the Europa League? I think his request is fair.  I would think that with Fulham qualifying for Europe in the unconventional way, they would have to play a few extra matches against lower level teams that qualified the same way, so he probably could be spared for a few of those. Here’s what Dempsey said:

“I haven’t had  much of a rest in the summer since I came to Fulham. I  guess a career is not that long – but I do need a bit of break, hopefully the  17-19 days that’s normal to recharge the batteries.”

To be fair, he also said this about the team’s chances in Europe:

“I’d like to think we can do what we’ve done in the past, that we could be fighting in Europe. I don’t think last season was a fluke. We have the quality here to do it again,”

Gael Kakuta is also sending out a plea, again asking for more playing time.  He did it in a very nice way, and frankly I don’t blame him either, the whole point of being on loan is to get playing experience and he’s not getting that.  I’m not really sure why Hughes is insisting on starting Gudjohnsen over Kakuta, let alone Zamora the last few fixtures, so we’ll see what happens against Sunderland. Maybe he puts Zamora and Kakuta out there, sitting Gudjohnsen and Dembele, who could probably use a rest.  Zamora and Kakuta are both crafty guys and could probably net at least one goal as a pair, if not more.

Mark Hughes said he will be going to a lot of matches here at the end of the season to get a last look at potential targets for the summer transfer.  With Kakuta going back to Chelsea and Gudjohnsen finishing his loan as well, some strikers Fulham remain linked with are Shaun Wright-Phillips of Manchester City and Peter Utaka, younger brother of John. We’ll see what other names crop up in the coming weeks.

David Stockdale made a more logical plea for playing time than the last time he did.  Instead of lashing out on Twitter about how he wants more playing time, he told the media he wants to go out on loan next season, but that long-term he absolutely wants to stay with Fulham. This might be a best-case scenario for both parties, and makes a ton of sense.

Also, MORE Mark Hughes leaving rumors. Don’t believe them, he’s not going anywhere. I love how that article added something even sillier in David Moyes. Yeah, sure, they’re going to lure away the 2nd longest tenured manager in the Premier League for a lateral move. That’s realistic… (/sarcasm)

One last note folks, make sure you check out my Facebook page here and like the blog! I just got it going, and will be posting updates there as well as a few polls and other odds and ends.  Make sure you check it out occasionally!

Wolves 1-1 Fulham: The Glass Is Half Empty

Posted: April 23, 2011 by Kyle Bonn in Postgame
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Andy Johnson saves a point from Wolves, but Fulham can't grab the win

Fulham fans can come out of this match feeling 2 different ways.  You can either feel this is a point gained, or 2 points lost. I’m not even going to beat around the bush, I’m going to get right to the meat and potatoes of how this match left me feeling: Mark Hughes lost 2 points for Fulham.  Bottom line, end of story.  And the worst part is, he lost the match before it even began.  Mark Hughes came up with the brilliant idea of starting Eidur Gudjohnsen and Simon Davies instead of Bobby Zamora, Andy Johnson, or Gael Kakuta.  His thinking was clearly to save the starters for the upcoming bouts with Bolton and Sunderland Wednesday and Saturday.  We’ll see how the decision affects those matches, but right now, it cost Fulham 2 points.

Simon Davies actually played pretty well, but he ran out of steam and his crosses became more and more erratic as the match went on.  Gudjohnsen was a non-factor, and his chance to prove his worth to the club went by the wayside.

For the record, did I not say that nobody ever wants to go up against a team fighting for their lives? (I did, incase you didn’t realize that was rhetorical) Wolves played like they were fighting for their lives, and although some of their challenges were questionable, I don’t fault them, as they played valiantly and really had the energy and spirit Fulham was sometimes lacking.  I might as well just get into it.

The good:

Andy Johnson – He scored so quickly after coming into the match that my phone received the ESPN text alert of the goal before it got the text regarding the substitution.  It wasn’t a perfect strike but Hennessey wasn’t really ready for it since it didn’t exactly come into the box on a perfect cross or clear scoring opportunity, so he was flat-footed and couldn’t get over to make the save.  It was a shot in the arm for Fulham, one that I honestly didn’t expect to come.

Gael Kakuta – After coming on with Zamora and getting into a groove, he put in some seriously spirited shots.  I believe if given a start, he would have found the back of the net.  He really got comfortable with the match and started to create chances as well as attempt to finish them.

The defense – I will give Aaron Hughes a pass on the goal. Looking back on it, it wasn’t a horrible job, he just didn’t jump high enough to challenge Fletcher for the header and got beat.  It wasn’t like anyone really messed up their marking or anything.  I predicted we’d allow a goal anyways, and holding Wolves to 1 is just fine defensively in my opinion, it’s the offense that let the 2 points slip away.  The rest of the match was well played by the back 4.  In a very physical match, their challenges were good and accurate, unlike many of the midfielders’ challenges, and after the goal (especially in the 2nd half), they ended almost every Wolves buildup before it could gain any kind of headway.

Carlos Salcido – The defenseman had a few issues in defense, but his early strike left me incredibly surprised, and he had a few absolutely beautiful feeds of Dempsey and Dembele who were both off-target all day.  I was happy with his play.

Despite the large number of free kicks given, I would have put referee Michael Oliver in here if it weren’t for the yellow card on Brede Hangeland for a perfectly fine challenge that actually won the ball (it also sent Mark Hughes to the stands for kicking a water bottle.  It seems the former Manchester City star has lost a bit of his accuracy, taking three hacks before connecting his foot with the bottle.  Was kind of a funny display. Nice to see him getting emotionally invested though, I like when managers have a fire about them such as that).

The bad:

Mark Hughes – I put the blame on him.  With 5 matches to go, it’s not about resting your starters, no matter what the next week’s schedule looks like.  It’s about sucking it up, gritting it out, and grabbing as many points as you can.  Hughes didn’t realize this, and he paid the price.  Starting Eidur Gudjohnson and benching Zamora was an absolute atrocity of a mistake, even if Bobby apparently picked up a slight knock in training. I know I’m beating a dead horse, but I was pretty upset about this right from the getgo.

Eidur Gudjohnsen - Failed to have an impact on the game, and was generally useless on the pitch.  I realize he’s at this point no better than a backup, but I know he’s better than how he played.  The attack as a whole is to blame for the lack of goal scoring, but at least Dembele and Dempsey had chances they came close on. EidGud was practically invisible. I can’t even remember any memorable touches he had.

Clint Dempsey – I only put him here because he had a few blantly obvious chances he misfired on.  His accuracy was off, and it led to some pretty poor finishing from the normally dead-on-balls accurate midfielder (name the movie reference!).

Man of the Match:

This is a tough one, as many people played a part for both sides but no one really came out as a hero.  I would say if I had to pick (and I do), I would go with Wolves captain Karl Henry, who played pretty darn good, physical defense, and kept his team together and although they didn’t win, they grabbed a pretty big point.

Going forward, this club has to go for it all, or they’re not going to get anywhere.  Mark Hughes has to take smart risks, not stupid ones, and he has to play aggressively.  He did neither of those today, and it cost the club.  I realize I may be overly negative, but this is a bad draw.   Let’s hope it doesn’t hurt the club going forward.  If I had to pick, I still think Wolves will stay up, with West Ham, Blackpool, and Wigan going down.

Mark Hughes after the match:

“We’ve got to be pleased with taking something out of the game. From our point of view the worst-case scenario was to allow Wolves to  score first. That’s what happened and it made a for hard day for us. If  we’d have taken any one of the chances that we created early on I think we would  have comfortably won the game. That would have caused Wolves to come out and try  and get back on level terms and I think we would have very quickly picked them  off. But because they had something to fight for and protect it was more  difficult for us. But we kept going and thankfully we got something out of the  game. It’s a difficult fixture on paper and we had to be strong today and show  character to get back on level terms.”

Hughes is glass half full.  Me, not so much. What are you?

We have a nice quick turnaround and play Bolton on Wednesday.  Any thoughts from today? Are you feeling as negative as me after this match? Maybe Andy Johnson lifted your spirits and you’re happy with the result? Let’s hear em.  If I find any other bits of news from the match, or interesting quotes from Sparky I will pass them along to you either here or on my Twitter, @FulhamsFinest.

Manchester United 2-0 Fulham: Well, At Least We Tried

Posted: April 9, 2011 by Kyle Bonn in Postgame
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Well, it was a good effort.  We played relatively well, but like I said, we had to be perfect, and we werent. That includes the referees.  Berbatov was offsides.  I’m going to repeat it, because, well, he was.

Here’s Mark Hughes after the match.  He said a lot of things I totally agree with:

“I was reasonably pleased with the start we made but it was a poor goal to concede, the first one, even though it was offside.  We shouldn’t have allowed the situation.  We needed to get back into the game quickly but we conceded another poor goal from a comedy of errors and 2-0 down is very difficult for us.  We played into United’s hands to be perfectly honest.  From their point of view, they could get men behind the ball and they just played counter-attack so it was really difficult for us to break them down and we didn’t have enough ability to ask questions of them.”

“We gave ourselves too much to do today.  Once we’d conceded the first goal – which I’m a little bit disappointed about because it obviously was offside and shouldn’t have counted – but the second goal coming almost immediately after that was a realy body blow for us and at that point – 2-0 down – it is very difficult for us to have an impression on the game because United have been in this situation many, many times before.”

I don’t really care to spend too much time on this, because in the grand scheme of things it means nothing, and it tells us relatively little about the team.  We lost 2-0 to the top team in the league.  Shoot us.  I usually do ”good” and “the bad” sections, but that’s difficult here, because to be honest, to me, there wasn’t much that I can tab as “good” or “bad.” Almost everyone was just about “mediocre.”  With that in mind, it’s going to be a short segment, so here goes my best effort.

The good:

-The defense as a whole: Aaron Hughes had a rough outing, but everyone else played relatively well.  Dimitar Berbatov was offsides goal no question on his, and I think that threw them off enough to allow the 2nd goal.  So I don’t really fault them too much. Other than those, they played really well.  They let a few guys through but recovered in time every time.

-Mark Hughes: He took full advantage of the Damien Duff injury and took a chance with Gael Kakuta and a 4-3-3.  Even though, as you’ll see in the next section, Kakuta had a subpar match, I love the risk, and won’t fault Hughes one bit for the move.  Maybe he could have started Gudjohnson instead of the youngster, but Chelsea was already pissed he hadn’t been playing much, and he’d been doing very well so far, so I don’t blame him at all.  In fact, I love the move.

The bad:

-Gael Kakuta: The Chelsea kid had a tough time today.  He didn’t really find any openings, and when he did, he blew them.  He had one of the more ugly attempts at goal I’ve ever seen off a free kick, launching the ball almost higher over the goal than he was far from it when kicking.  This was his first start with Fulham, and although granted it was against the top team, he didn’t exactly make the most of it.

-Moussa Dembele: Dembele is in a slump, bottom line.  He used to be the chance-maker on this team, and now he’s practically invisible.  He isn’t exactly doing anything bad, like giving the ball away, but he’s not doing anything to help the team either, and that’s bad.  I will be analyzing his slump later, but he hasn’t scored a goal in freakin forever, and he hasn’t exactly created many chances either.  He might need a match off, maybe give Eid. Gud. a start.

-The side judge: Berbatov was offsides, incase you didn’t previously hear.  Yeah, it made me angry.

Man of the Match:

-The name “Manchester United”: Yea, I think, despite what Mark Hughes and the rest of the team said, they were intimidated, and it flustered them just enough to let up a BS goal and then one soon after as a reactionary.

Idea: Let’s move on to Wolves.  We have a very winnable match away match here, and I’m looking forward to it.  Forget what happened today.  I like Wolves, I hope they stay up this season. They’re a scrappy team, and frankly, they deserve it for beating ManU alone.  But in any case, this time obviously we need 3 points from this match, and we should get 3 points.  Anything less is a disappointment in my book.

Stay tuned to see what’s up with Moussa, and for other news and notes.  Don’t forget, if you don’t already, follow me on Twitter! @FulhamsFinest

Fulham 3-2 Blackburn: Bobby Zamora is Officially BACK

Posted: March 5, 2011 by Kyle Bonn in Postgame
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Zamora scores the penalty late against Blackburn (courtesy Google News)

Well, this had the makings of a classic letdown. Early 1-0 lead, erased in 1st half injury time. 2-1 lead, erased. Cappy reffing certainly leaving, at the very least, a few yelow cards and important set pieces in the ref’s pocket. A draw would be nothing more than a disappointmet. But then finally, referee Mark Clattenburg, who has a knack for putting himself in the headlines week after week (see: Rooney, Wayne) made up for a number of missed calls with one….well….penalty? My quick thoughts: was it a penalty? Absolutely. Therefore I think Clattenburg made an ok call. However, would I have made that call? Probably not.

The good:

-Damien Duff: I tweeted it during the game, and I will repeat it here: I want to hug Damien Duff. I dont know why, I just do. He is like a big blond teddy bear running around scoring goals. The man is a machine. A big, happy, goal-scoring machine. I love it. One of my favorite Whites for sure.

-Mark Hughes: He made excellent substitutions, not only for the players he put in but also those he took out. Murphy was playing very off form, and Dembele was not really having much of an impact.

-Bobby Zamora: He had to come on at some point, Hughes made it the right time, and Zamora cashed in on the PK.  It’s great to see him back on the scoresheet after so long, and I’m sure that’s a huge monkey off his back for sure.

The bad:

-Defense: “CLEAR CLEAR CLEAR CLEAR CLEAR!!!!!!” Was basically what I was yelling the entire time the ball was in our penalty area, and it didn’t happen well too often.  Chris Baird again was the best of the bunch, but overall it was a sloppy effort at best.  I know the own goals were too much for Hughes, but this is the part where we really miss John Pantsil.

-Moussa Dembele: He wasn’t exactly “bad” per se, but he hasn’t made too much of an impact recently.  I’m not asking him to get on the scoresheet all the time, because that’s not the type of player he is.  He’s not a chance finisher, he’s a chance creator.  But it’d be nice to see him net a few once in a while, you know, since he IS a striker and all.

-Did I mention the clearing?

Overall, this was a great attacking display, and a relatively poor defensive one.  This team NEEDS to put both together sometime soon in order to win any kind of impressive league fixture, but at the moment it’s been enough.  I’d rather not rely on the refereeing again to pull out the 3 points.

Speaking of 3 points, the win moves Fulham up to 11th place, 1 point ahead of Stoke and 1 point behind Newcastle and Everton, who are tied after Everton beat Newcastle today.  We’re finally in an area condusive to our goal differential (everyone ahead of us has a higher one except for Everton, and everyone below us has a lower one) which is nice to see.

MVP: Damien Duff – Is this even a question?

Honorable mention: Bobby Zamora, Andy Johnson

Unsung Hero: Gael Kakuta

Kakuta (courtesy zimbio.com)

The kid came on as a late sub for Dembele and was doing everything Dembele was supposed to do, creating chances left and right.  His passing was superb and his decision making was on point.  I’m liking what I see from him more and more.  He really is making the most of this loan, and while I don’t see him cracking the starting lineup, he could see himself develop into a serious super-sub for Fulham down the stretch.

Finally, I’m going to formally announce that Damien Duff reads this blog.  He has to.  There’s no other way he knew exactly what I wanted him to do.  I asked him yesterday to outperform Mark Hughes’s handshake fiasco, and he did, with his 2 goals.  Well done Damien, and well done me (yes, I will pat myself on the back) for calling that one.