Long Time Lurker

Living fairly near to Motspur Park, I went along to the game tonight. While it's certainly disappointing that we were on the way to three points after 93 minutes and were going home with none after 97 (part of the first team ethos the academy certainly seems to have taken on board), I don't think we should get too downhearted. Overall Fulham probably deserved their win, dominating possession for the last third of the match, and we were a bit reliant on their poor final balls and inept finishing at times. That said, we matched them for long periods and I don't think anyone would have seen us as being two divisions below them, as we are of course at first team level. Of the individual performances, four stood out for me for different reasons. In the first half at least Fulham had no answer at all to Dejaune Brown, who simply bullied their rather large centre half as if it was the easiest thing in the world. DB saw less of the ball in the second half, but he took his goal nicely. Hopefully he will not be another Calum Ball type who struggles when up against more experienced and tougher opponents. His overall game - touch, awareness, positioning etc - all seemed good to me. This last point holds true for Lennon Wheeldon who really seems to be growing into the no 10 role. Ryan Bartley had an excellent game at centre back, a calm, reassuring presence who read the game well. And then there was Darren Robinson, who I was particularly keen to watch, in part for some of the reasons discussed higher up in this thread. I thought he was really good, passing the ball quickly and accurately with the minimum of fuss. He was unlucky not to score when after a great run, he hit the post with the keeper stranded. He certainly likes a tackle. One particular pole axing of a Fulham player was spectacular, with many in the crowd seemingly sharing my surprise that no free kick was given. If it was up to me, I'd see DRob as a better bet for the first team than Tyrese Fornah, particularly as a CDM. But it is of course not up to me at all, and DRob may have some mysterious Elsnikesque shortcoming which means he never makes it. However, he seems to be ahead of Fornah in areas such as positioning and knowing when to release the ball. This is not to slag off Fornah, who certainly has some talent but to me he plays more like an 18 year old than someone who is 23. In parenthesis, as we used to say in the Ossie End, I do wonder whether this might be to do with where we got him from. I recently saw a little documentary on Oliver Burke, who the Red Dogs managed to stiff RB Leipzig for about £13m back in the day. The documentary made the point that Burke had a certain degree of raw talent, but the Leipzig coaches were surprised at how poorly he had been coached meaning that he was deficient in all sorts of basics. Still, if you can get £13m for somebody that poor, you must literally be laughing all the way to the bank.

I'm not entirely sure I understand the point being made here, as the two examples quoted are, I would have thought, more of a reason for being cautious than for picking DBrown etc. With Bennett, we naturally thought that we had a real talent in our hands, given his debut at 15. As it turned out, he made a total of 88 further appearances for us, spread over nine seasons, which produced six goals. He only ever played one game for us where he completed the full 90 minutes. As for Sibbo, I like him a lot. However, it wasn't his debut (which was against Scunthorpe in the EFL cup) but his first game in the league against the Wendies, followed by the hat trick at Millwall that created the level of expectation about him. In retrospect, the first two league games were possibly the worst things that could have happened to him, given the level of expectations that they raise ('he's better than Jude Bellingham'...). He was great to watch in the u21s, but expecting him to dance around experienced championship hard men in the way that he did with kids his own age at u18/u21 level was, again in retrospect, always unlikely. The dreaded phrase "failed to live up to his potential" seems to hang in the air about him, but what somebody's potential is can never be more than a guess on the part of the person doing the assessment. Perhaps the fault lies more with the assessor than the actual player. Having said all that, I hope we play something like Ghost of Clough's team on Wednesday, although I think Radcliffe is injured and the Sibbo police will be after GoC for suggesting that young Louie should play at left back....................

And I do as well, while Banksy also seems a welcome addition. Meanwhile, here are the highlights from the Middlesborough game: https://www.mfc.co.uk/videos/4cdab4c9-f119-4bab-8d96-9f7996f04252. There doesn't seem to be any sound, although that could just be representative of the atmosphere that the Smoggies manage to generate these days. As you'll see, the goal is not one where cover ourselves in glory, but hopefully it will be a learning experience.