Fulham Focus

A Draw Out East

This week, Kish, Sam and Boney dissect the draw at Portman Road against Kieran McKenna's lively Ipswich Town side and the tactical conundrum that is our midfield. The team also looks back over Fulham FC's transfer window and sees what picture emerges from Marco Silva's new puzzle pieces.

Duration:: 56m
Broadcast on:: 03 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

After six consecutive wins against Ipswich Town, Fulham travelled out to the countryside to Suffolk and came away with less than three points for the first time in over seven years. The match has left us with many questions, and as we head into the international break, we're going to try to answer a few of them. And to do that, we have Sam and Kish to break down the start of Fulham season, the transfer window and look forward to a weekend off when we can do things other than worry about what's happening in black and white. I'm Bony and welcome to your Fulham Focus Podcast. Gentlemen, and as always, I use the word loosely. How are we doing? Sam, you're pretty in pink in your Fulham training top. Kish and I are feeling a bit bad for not wearing the appropriate colors. How are you? OK, I've just been coaching 25-year-old boys, so that's a dodgy start already, isn't it? It sounds awful when you say it like that, but I'm tired, and it's probably only the second most shambolic football performance I've seen in the last few days. Surely that many of five-year-olds is more hurting than coaching. It very much is, we have an hour with them, and the first 20 minutes is just trying to get them to just sit down and shut up. It's hard work. Much like trying to have coaching. Surely you want them to stand up. I don't think sat downs are going to help very much. Well, we take 20 minutes to try to get them to sit down, so then we can say to them to stand up now, and yeah, let's go and get a born. Dear listener, Sam has the face of a man who's seen things, but no one else should ever have to see. The same things also I've been hit by many, they can't, they don't do many things, but a lot of them can kick the ball really hard when you don't expect it. So balls flying at you from all angles, it's you take your life into your own hands. It sounds like my seven-to-side game. Or my shooting, which was anywhere other than that goal. Something Sammy James and I have been coming. Kish is coming off his holidays, he's looking refreshed, he's raring to go, he's been out to the countryside on Saturday. How are you looking ready for this? Yeah, pretty good. Although I do have a cold, which I have a horrible feeling might be COVID, which is probably news to me, but also to Sam, who I spent Saturday with. So, I'm hoping you'll be great. You're feeling well, Sam, after I drift to Portland Road. Testing negative, so we'll hopefully be okay. Just casting my mind back to the moment we stood outside Portland Road, and said, "You can go in if you want us." I said, "No, no, I'll stand here and talk to you, I'll get a bit closer, we'll have a chat." Yeah, sorry about that. What a mistake. That was the high point of the day, really, wasn't it? It really was. I make sure he stays his four seats away from me, because you have nowhere he's been when we're at the cottage. So, there we are. Anyways, gents, you guys went out to the game, which I, yeah, I guess I couldn't do, but I was on cooking juicy, so, yeah, things to keep the wife happy. It was an interesting performance. I caught the game on through means and ways. I was saying to Kish before we started. It was like playing against a team, but it was playing 4-2-4. It was extraordinary at times just to see the way it was coming over. Let's just do some quick takeaways from it. I think a point's fair, Sam. What do you think about the result on that one? I think we were probably lucky to get a point. It was all set up for a classic full of performance, and we were probably end up losing it 2-0 or 2-1. Yeah, for sort of long periods in that first off, and especially maybe the last 20 minutes, it seemed to be going that way. But we managed to hang on, and we had the odd spell where we did some things right. But, yeah, on the whole, not too much positivity, I think, coming away from that. It was all a bit, that's another full of away game that I probably won't remember in 3-0-4 hours, depending on what part I can find. I live a ball straight. God, Kish, be a biddish. I mean, so I left the ground feeling very much like Sam, which is I think we were quite fortunate to get a point, and I was quite happy that we got that point by the end of the game. And then I did what I always do, which is look at a load of numbers that you don't think mean anything. And then apparently we'd actually won a game on XG, which never happens. So maybe we weren't as fortunate as we thought. But my overall feeling leading the ground was that, yeah, I thought they played pretty well. And I mean, the thing that made me happy about the game is that my church accounts called Cottage Tactical, I like tactics and managers and formations and pressing systems. And in Marco and Kieran McKenna, you have two very, very good managers. And it was just interesting to see how they approached the game. And I think a lot of what Ipswich did, including that sort of format press that you mentioned, Boney, was sort of perfectly targeted to the weak points in Funnham's team, still sort of coming together this season. So yeah, a point game, I think, or things considered, even though it's a newly promoted side, you'd probably want to win against. I've taken much more of an interest in the tactical side of things since hanging out with Kish. And what I will say, the the away section of Portland. You get cream for that, I think. The away section of Portland Road is set up perfectly to kind of review it because I was very back row right on the halfway line and could sort of see everything developing. But despite being in the back row, the other thing I took on full interface was those ridiculous fireworks, or those sorts of jets of fire where the seams came out. And again, back row, so hot. So hot. So I was like, I faced our goal. And it was warm. Like it was, you could genuinely feel it. You guys weren't there. They've got those at the cottage now. The big Jesse fiery things. Yeah. Surely you don't feel them in the hand me. Wolverhampton wanders. They're a ridiculous idea. In the same way that we're to blame for the clappers whenever they turn up in anywhere in well, ever in the world, wolves have to blame for the fire. So if Billy Joel wants to know who started the fire, Wolverhampton wanders. Public service announcement, ladies and gentlemen. So Billy Joel in New York. Fantastic. So goes here. Three hour long show Madison Square Garden party time. Just that one song. Now, to be fair, it's right at the end. There was like loads of random 70s stuff that I was sitting there going, never heard this before. And there's people around you singing every lyric and you're like, the boys still got it. And it was a great show. We will not be talking about Billy Joel anymore, because we have football to talk about. Kish, this setup was for us, same as it seems it was against Lester. And again, very phonetic beginning, both sides sort of going at it as we always tend to come out of the box pretty quick. Anyways, so did Ipswich. But after about that sort of first 15, 20 minutes, they were just piling the pressure on and we were getting sloppier and sloppier. That's how it looked on the telly. What was it like from you with your rose tinted tactical glasses on? Yeah, I think that's probably fair. I think that the Ipswich press took a little bit of time to sort of work out what it is they wanted to do with us. And quite quickly, you could see that they were sending us to our left and making us play out via Calvin Bassie, who had by far the most touches, passes, carries everything. Anything that involved the idea of controlling the game seemed to come through Bassie, if you look at the numbers. And that press and those sort of four in their attacking line were really aggressive in doing that. And then they sort of started to realise that they could pick and choose when to be aggressive and to cause us making errors and when they could actually just sit off a little bit and know that there's absolutely no way that Bassie or Diop if it went the other side, we're going to be able to fire a ball through the lines to our midfield. And that sort of discomfort and that sort of lack of control at right at the start of Fulham's attacks became a real problem because Marco, more so this season than ever, although we have played two newly promoted sides of maybe that's part of the reasoning behind it. We seem to be playing longer and longer passing patterns. And if we can't get those started in a reasonable way, it just completely throws off the balance of our team. And it felt like in that first half leading up to their goal that there was a control that Ipswich had over the game, even when they didn't have a ball, which is they knew what we could and couldn't do. And they were happy to have us, let's have it in certain places. And then we got to, if we managed to get the ball through that first phase into their half, we got into a familiar situation, which is we didn't really have a huge amount of cutting edge in the final third. So we started trying to force things. And that means you give the ball away sometimes. And maybe we'll talk about who gave the ball away more often because there's been what I would call a culture war raging online about certain members of Fulham's team. But when we started giving the ball away, we then we then had issues going back the other side as well. So yeah, I for the first time in a long time, I felt that we were probably second best in the tactical battle to start with. And it took Marco a little bit of time to do anything about that really. And that set the tone for the start of the match. 80 touches, Calvin Bassie had 71 passes, 83% complete, which is frankly shouldn't be happening. But yeah, all in all, reasonable game, Sam, we have to mention him, Rory DeLap's boy of all people, just I thought he had a superb game. And it was annoying me every time his name was mentioning, so I hate Rory DeLap. If you're listening, Rory, hope all is not well. But when you're sort of coming up and there's a player who lives rent free in your head as someone who just always, it was him for some reason. I can't explain it. I never know. Anyone to have that struggle opinion on Rory DeLap, that's extraordinary. Well, I am just having a moment now because the realization there is that I have now seen a father and a son score against Fulham. And I'm really old, but that's just dawned on me now. Wow, okay. Yeah, because of course Rory DeLap, score of for Karl Arwin, perhaps one of the famous, most famous Fulham games of all time, April '97. Yeah, Liam's goal was a lot better as well. Off the back of a surgeon run from Leif Davis, who is very popular in the Fulham Focus WhatsApp group among some of our transfer aficionados who've perhaps been singing his praises for a couple of years. So much so I got suckered in and put in my fantasy team for this season. Almost captain doing the weekend. Yeah, it was a good goal. I'm just glad he didn't have a long throw as well, because that would have really brought it all shattering back to me. It's all been a 90s revival this week. I don't think I could have dealt with that as well. The thing about DeLap is that yes, picks up the ball, we'll talk about how he ends up getting it, I'm sure in a minute, but drives on great early shot. Maybe then I should have done a little bit better, but it's very hard to criticize, but then giving him out times he bails us out entirely. But I think his general play was excellent. I thought he was great in the press. They sat him on Lukich run than one of the back four, which I think really stopped us from doing lots of things. He just looks an absolute handful. I mean, in the same way that Marco Silver's strike has always just looked a handful, he just looked like an absolute pain. There's one moment where he absolutely bodied Calvin Bassett, an aerial duel early in the game, and I can't remember Calvin Bassett, he's getting bounced off somebody ever. So for a young lad starting in the Premier League for among the first times in your career, just really impressive throughout. I know we're not meant to just come on here and be like, "Amster just manager is great, and their striker is great, and they're really nice, and they play in blue." No, but he had a good go for that. Yeah, it just does make you wonder how many of these quality players on Man City have they been stockpiling? How many more of them are there, just knocking around in their under-18s on the 21 side? It's frightening. On the bright side, there's probably going to be a fire sale towards the end of the year, so to come out... They're going to fire them back up from the National League next season. 120 points. More points than charges next season. Yeah, it's not going to happen. Big fine arbitrary 40-point deduction. Yeah, sorry. That's my feeling on it. Let's not get into that, rabbit hole. You made the point that I wanted to bring up really was they sat a little bit deeper on Lukich. I thought by doing that, that created space in between him and Perera, which kind of stayed there for the rest of the game. They seemed quite disconnected there in the middle of the field, which Ipswich exploited really well, which led to that first goal, which was again, sloppy pass, and then Fulham being knocked quick to react to giving the ball away. And by the time everybody seemed to be on their front foot, they were away. Yeah, so just breaking down that goal, a terrible pass by Andreas Perera, who I spend most of my life defending on the internet and will do again later in the podcast, but not a good pass. I'm doing the edits, so that bit's not going to make it in there. A slip from Kenny Tatte, which really doesn't help things, because he's probably the player who should be going back with Leaf Davis. He's actually falls, and what that does is it means that Sastar Lukich goes roaming over trying to stop the danger. And when Lukich vacates that space, he hasn't got a sort of conventional holding midfield partner. The way Marco set up this season is reminiscent of the Fulham of Old, with one holding midfield there, two, what he would call three-eights, who both move on a bit in Smithrow and Andreas. And we won't have you talk about that balance and that midfield a bit later. But when Lukich goes across, there is a huge gap in the middle of the park for Fulham. And what I think is perhaps not getting any attention, because everyone's thinking about Andreas giving the ball away and trying and failing to get back, is that nobody seems willing to jump up and go and put some pressure on to that. Everybody seems to be going backwards. And he was dropping off quite a bit in that game. And neither Calvin Bassie nor he said he wanted to go with him. And that, I think, even in addition to Fulham's sort of midfield, Jaapalini a size hole was a problem throughout the game, and it was punished for that goal. So, yeah, it's sort of in a moment summed up some of the problems that Fulham were having throughout the game. You watch that back on the replay and you've got Diobassie and Jedi, all kind of cutting back to sort of the left-hand side of the goal, which just gave him enough that it was a great shot. And when you see it, you're like, "Okay, fair play to the lead." And I guess Sam, when you're giving someone who's clearly got some talent, some space, they're going to take a chance, aren't they? Yeah, as I said, it was a really good finish. I'm glad that Kish kind of did maybe ask the question of Bernlanek, because I did think that at the time, because it felt, although it was from distance, it did kind of feel quite slow, didn't it? It's almost lute, lute, and it wasn't, of course, right in the top corner, but I'd probably just split in the hairs, to be honest. Yeah, although, I must say, I was quite pleased with how we responded, because it was kind of the start I expected. And then I thought, "Well, that's probably just going to go from bad to worse." But we did put some really nice stuff together at times, culminated in the goal, which I didn't realize until watching it back, what a well-worked and long move it was. It was, there was a little sort of purple patch after the goal. It tends to be for a team. They've got the tails up. But then we started getting into it, sort of passing better things, reconnecting. One of the things that you brought up, Kish, that was quite interesting, was how Smith Rowe was having to sort of assess a little bit, I mean, weren't giving an opportunity to pass the ball forward. Your quick thread on that earlier was quite something. Do you want to talk to pour all the meal being forced to play with his back-to-go? Yeah, so I think what I've been trying to argue online for since the game is that I think even though everyone's focusing on Fulham's midfield has been the problem. I think Fulham's midfield is a problem because Fulham's defense is actually a big problem at the moment, not in how they're defending, they're defending pretty well, but in how they play the ball up back. We've got four defenders, all of whom are average or below average on the ball under pressure. And what that means is that midfielders who we want to be higher up the pitch in Smith Rowe and in Andreas, in that first phase of play, are coming deeper and deeper and deeper, running towards their own goal in search of the ball. And what that means is that they're playing sideways and backwards passes a lot of the time to try and help us keep hold of it. And it means that they're not in the final third doing what we want them to do. And I think for Fulham's goal, it's really striking that Emily Smith Rowe picks up the ball facing the opposition goal for a change in their half. And actually, you can count on your fingers the number of times that happened, particularly in that first half. He was coming deeper and deeper and deeper in search of the ball. And there's been some criticism of Rodrigo Muniz and some suggestion that, you know, Fulham, he's not doing enough up front, but he's really isolated a lot of the time. And that's because we are attacking players are having to come back all the time to try and help the defense out. So in a weird way, I think that what the game showed me is that it's only when Fulham changes its composition at the back and we start getting some line-breaking passes from someone like Joachim Anderson, that you're going to see Emily Smith Rowe picking up Paul in the areas you want him to. And when we see someone like Smith Rowe picking up the ball in their third, things can start to happen with the other weapons at Fulham Hart. So there was a sort of a lack of balance to what we were trying to do, I think, fairly often. And his performance more so than Andreas Pereira sort of singled that for me. I think Andreas has got a lot of attention because he's given the ball a lot and had a fairly poor game. And he's been asked to do a bit more defensively, which maybe doesn't suit him as much. And that's an easy thing to say, oh, he's in a different role, I'm not sure that works. But actually, I thought just the sort of ineffectiveness of Smith Rowe showed where Fulham were failing because he's supposed to be the difference maker in this team now that William doesn't exist. And a lot of the time he was just sort of retaining the ball with Sassolukic, which just seems like a waste. I think William does still exist. Not in our world, he doesn't. But are you suggesting then that because the worrying thing when you started there was, obviously, there's been a lot of talk about the midfield. I'm sure we're going to get onto the attack. I've questioned Marx over the goalkeeper in terms of the last couple of goals we've let in. And now you're saying the defence is getting it all wrong. And so that's quite worrying that we're across the board, have such issues. If we start getting it right in defence, does it all fall into place? I think there's an argument that says that when that balance of the defence changes, when you have a couple of ball players in there, everyone starts to look a fair bit better. And I would be astonished if Yuchem Anderson doesn't play in the next game. I mean, I would really like to have seen him play at the weekend, and that's not hindsight. That was my stance before. Marker Silver does not like throwing players, and even if they're returning to the club until he feels like they're drilled in whatever he does. And I think that's probably an argument we said, it would have been harsh or needs to deal up, who's actually being one of the better players to start the season. I mean, insofar as being a defender, it includes defending. He's done pretty well. It's the other stuff that he struggles with. And actually, I do think it's important to note that I think he was the pick of the two centre backs again this weekend, both defensively and actually he didn't do as much on the ball and asked to do as much on the ball, but he was fine. And it's going to be sort of slightly unfair that he's probably going to be the one who's going to get the chop to bring Anderson in. But I think it's just necessary because it's moving full of players into all sorts of play at the parts of the pitch we don't want them to be into the fact that teams know they can either press or sit off our defense because they're not going to be able to pass the ball. The goal was nicely worked. Left side again, threw in, gave him credit work to do. It was a good cross by Robinson that sort of mid-height, lots of pace on it. Moonies gets tangled up with a couple of defenders and goes down and a dumb a Troyer is there to pick up the pieces. It looked like one of our goals of old and it just didn't hit the striker. It hit the guy on the other side of it, which is what Marco Silva has been saying he wants Troyer to do is to be charging the box on that far side, same with a woe bee. So was that a positive that you took for it? Didn't really manage to do it again for the rest of the game, but there was quick link up between Smithrow Robinson and releasing that into the box in that sort of danger area and just on the edge of the six yard area where you want it to be? Yeah, it's a brilliant move. I was saying, it's like 20 odd passes and that's two assists in two games for Anthony Robinson as well. So who says he has no end product? I mean, admittedly, I've been saying that about a dormitory already for five or six years, probably still not convinced that his goal, Ipswich, that wasn't just a poor first touch. No, I don't mean that. Again, I thought he really impressed me at times and he's clearly got so much to offer as well. It's just how often he can do and when would be best to do it, I suppose is one question. But yeah, as you point out, it was just a really well put together, move down the left, completely cut Ipswich open and brought us a deserved equaliser. And it's exactly what Fulham have been trying to work on for the last year or so under market, which is the concentration of the ball down one side and then it comes to the other side for a two on two or one on one or whatever you want it to be. And that's something that I think is interesting, this season, which is that the ball seems to be starting on the left hand side and working its way over to the right for Adama. And actually, what we saw on that occasion was the ball was on the right hand side and it worked its way over to M.O.B. and Robinson, which is traditionally what Fulham would do with Willian on that side last year with Jedi. That feels like where we want to be. And it feels like a lot of our good stuff happens when we get those two operating in space. It won't be in and Jedi now. So, yeah, really, really good goal. And it sort of, yes, it was a long passing move. But one, the thing that I think is uncommon for a lot of our goals of late and particularly the season is that when we score a goal, we go from sort of like fairly pointless possession to goal quite quickly. That last bit is fast. It's almost like a counter attack because you've created an overload on one side and then you've got space to run into on the other side like you are running on a break. And I think that that is that is Marko's that's Marko's football. And I presume that's what we're going to be working on throughout the international break is to how to do that more sustainably. And I think a lot of that is based on how you start off in in possession. And again, I think Anderson's a big part of that. And just as you're saying there, the big chance that what we had in the in the second half as well was that switch of play gets it over to Adama. Good ball into the box kind of gets stuck under his feet and he lays it off to to Smith Row. I've seen people saying he should have hit it first time. If he managed to connect with that first time, it would have been worldy. But again, that interchange of play was looking really, really tasty just to start wrapping up talking about Ipswich. Question marks about Leno in the first half, none in the second. He was he was incredible in that. There was the, the, you know, a Benny chance where he sort of gets in the saves at feet, stopped Hutchinson right at the death as well. He was he was immense. Well, I think to say from Albany is key and I actually do wonder at the top, Kish mentioned the fact that we'd want it on the xg. I guess because I bet I didn't get a shot away there, did he? Leno's died at his feet. So there's going to be no xg for that. And that was a huge, huge chance for them to win the game. So yeah, no, I mean, he's still one of the best keepers in the division. And we do own that. Yeah, we should just say that that came from us losing the ball in the middle of the park again. I don't think we need to. No, it's. Thank you. It's right. Moon is, Moon has tried to buy a foul and he didn't, he didn't get changed for anything for that. And it was a, it was a quick counter. And interesting things there, because, finally, if you were saying about it, it was probably job stepping up, which created the space for Hutchinson to drift in. So it was him trying to do defensive things that, that created the chance. I will also just say that, like, on Amari Hutchinson, for all the short men of the world, like me, inspirational performance, it was great despite being tiny. So yeah, fair play to Amari. Hope he does that against other teams, not full enough for the rest of the season. Yeah, look, I think that, that second half was pretty frustrating in, in lots of ways. I think the positive from it was that I quite liked what I saw of Sanderberger when he came on. I liked his presence. There are, it seemed to release Sasele Kitch to play with a little bit more freedom, which I think he did at home against Lester, because we're just sort of just weeding to him like, we don't need someone to sit. He's just going to roam around and do whatever he wants anyway. And we'll probably still win. That's probably not realistic away from home. We'll get better teams and having that presence next to him, that physicality next to him, just sort of at least him a little bit. I also thought it was really nice between burger and leakage, as there was a couple of times when Sanderberger decides to go and try and win the ball high and sort of put himself about a bit to try and regain it. And Luke has just dropped off and screened him but nicely. And that sort of, it was a change, I went where Berg stuck out that really sort of burst forward and stuck out that really long leg to turn it out to the left leg. And it was absolutely beautiful. First of all, I've seen in a film show, he is fucking massive. He is huge. You don't appreciate it until you see it. Like he is huge. On the whole, the substitutions are pretty much when I started seeing the film substitutions was when I picked my coat up, but I thought, right, time to make a quick getaway. But he certainly added something to it, unlike others, not mentioning any names. And that's the question, isn't it, going forward? Is that what does Marka do in that midfield? Because his favourite son is getting all kinds of flack in his new role. And someone asked me online, easy to new role for Andreas, he seems to be getting up sort of high as he normally would. I think it's a new role in the sense that out of possession, he's expected to be in the two in the middle of the park, rather than the two pressing. And it's that defensive side of things and that retaining the ball side of things that he seems to be struggling in at the moment. He probably looks high still because Emil Smith-Rova's coming so deep. That is true. And the other thing I just want to say in my weekly Andreas defence is that like Fulham's struggle to finish moves off, right? They sort of, they get the ball into the attacking zones and then they don't really know what to do with it after their little triangle don't work. And the way that they bail themselves out of not being able to finish a move is that they just give it to Andreas and so can you just cross this into the box. Now, I'm not saying that's a good thing necessarily, but that's what they do. And that means that he's got a huge number of crosses going in that invariably get headed away and his past completion rate goes down and down and down and down. So I just think that like, I'm sort of, I'm Andreas ambivalent. I don't really know what that means because everyone seems to either love him or hate him and Marco seems to love him. And I don't know what you think, Boney and Sam, but I don't know if Marco's going to drop him. I really don't. I think I wonder if you'll just move him. But I had this very same conversation with with Tristan yesterday because he doesn't think I, or I said, it's surely the, the most likely scenario is eventually, Smithrow goes out to the left. Pereira goes back into 10, or Wobies on the right, Berg, part of Partners, Lukas in the midfield. But I think Tristan seems to think that maybe it'll be Lukas just the one who misses out despite probably being our most impressive performer. So far, he thinks he'll probably is likely to go with Pereira and Burgess or two, if Smithrow's still in the in the hole. But I don't know. Yeah, I think I agree with that. I think it's Luke Lukas has always been a bit of a square pegging around hole for us. And he's played really well this season. And I'm pleased to six. I've always racist him. But I think at the moment, the two players that for some reason seem undroppable, indroppable are Troyore and Pereira. Just the stats monkeys are going absolutely nuts for them at the moment. And how, how Troyore got man of the match, player of the match from the Fulham vote on Saturday. I have no idea. Okay, he scored a goal. Great. But there was some other stuff that wasn't ideal. By the way, I really hope that's not the case. I think dropping Sassa Lukas would be madness. I think he's been reliably our best player in the three games we played in the league. He seems to finally have a role. I doesn't mean Marcus is not going to do it. I think you might all be right. But I just, I think it would send a very hard message because I just think he's done everything that's been asked of him. And he can sort of play either of those two midfield roles. I hope there's a different way out. And on on Adama, we'll probably talk to him about him in a bit more generally. We're talking about he's coming up. He's coming up. We'll talk to Adama. That would be exciting. I'm trying to Fulham focus. What are you nerds talking about? I'm going to do some weights. On Adama, like, I'm also aware that like players playing well doesn't necessarily, there's not necessarily always a good thing for a team. Right. And I'm going to say this in the words, but like, it's like, the players that you notice tell you a bit about how the team are playing and the players that I'm noticing the most at the moment are Lukas because he's like the one person who seems to be able to string a pass together in a meaningful way. Fine. But let's park him for a minute. Players I'm noticing are Kenny Tete and Adama Triore. And I think in a way, that's a sign that Fulham aren't playing the style of football they want to because what you're noticing is like people who are, by definition, very, very aggressive, like last-ditch tackles, flying dribbles, in transition, like in a way, they're not the controlled sort of ball players that Silver has been relying on in recent years. And like, maybe they're going to add a different dynamic to the team and that's a really good thing and I'm delighted they're playing well. But it's not necessarily a good thing that players were noticing are those two. I think it's probably a sign that a lot of the rest of the team aren't really working. Like, Kenny Tete is the player that stands out when he's making last-ditch challenges and saving us, which he did a couple of times at the end of this game despite looking absolutely knackered. Like, I don't think that's necessarily sustainable. Like, we don't want Kenny to have to be super all the time bailing us out with last-ditch challenges. Completely agree. I have to understand your fan, I think, especially going 40 off as hell of a lot more and you understand why Tete, or Tete, as the commentator was calling him, once again, on Saturday. She on as well. We've got a darlin' Tete on the same broadcast. Goodness. That place would have been rocking Tete right back in the black and white shirt. She can show up whenever she wants. She's always welcome. You ever watch Parks and Recreation? You say, you know, Lil Sebastian, the tiny horse, which they all go absolutely mad for, apart from the one character. She's like, "I don't get it. I don't get it." That's kind of me with Kenny Tete. I like him. I think he's all right. He does a job, but people go mad for him. Any time you see an ideal Fulham team or the greatest Fulham team in 150 years, it's like Kenny Tete right back. He's right there. It's like, "Okay." To be fair, I think he's had a good start to the season. I understand why he's-- Oh, I agree with that. Maybe just not the same. Yeah. I really forget it. Move on. You're getting cancelled. Yeah. We'll do great for the statistics on the show with everybody replying to the tweet where we just put a little clip of Sam going, "Don't get it." He's the little Sebastian of Fulham. On that note, we're going to take a quick break and then we'll come back, talk transfers, talk with Squad, a bit of imbalance, and then some any other business. And we're back, so we still don't know whether or not the break thing actually works, but we'll see what it is. It's on my script that we have to do it. I think it was Sam's idea. So there we go. Blame him. I was telling him that. Well, there you go. Do you listen? I think it's like, you know how you have the drinks break if it's over a certain temperature. I think you have to do that. But you're searing Kenny Tete because it's too hot. We have to go to a break. We had to give everybody a few ads and there we are. Okay, the question I want to ask you guys really is we've had a transfer window, which I think's not been too bad. The athletic rated us is the third best out of the 20 premiership teams, which is either really good or everybody had a bit of a shocker this summer, which I think is somewhere in the middle there with the new signings, with the Palenius shaped hole. And I think we're starting to see just how much trouble he got us out of that we probably didn't realize in its totality. Are we in transition? Are we sort of at the middle of what we would call North America a rebuild to start reshaping the team in a slightly different image? I guess the easy answer for that is yes, but guys, what do you think? I mean, I'd like to know what the metric is for ranking a transfer window because is it the quality of one play you've brought in? Is it the sort of the combined quality of all the players you've brought in? Is it whether your squad is stronger or weaker than it was before that window? Because I think if it's that last one, I think the squad's probably weaker. I mean, well, how could it not be? We've lost one of the greatest defensive midfielders in Europe. And there was no way we could replace him really with a like for like model, but we've obviously spent money elsewhere. We've got a very exciting player in a male Smithrow, albeit one who's had his fitness issues for the last couple of years. There's too many unknowns at the moment to really make a definitive comment like that to say we had a great window. And it's why all the talk of us challenging for Europe. I mean, I know some sort of well, well established outlets have had us challenging for the top four or being at the top four at Christmas before Marco Silva gets poached. I'm not as convinced. I'm not as convinced that we're in a great place or as great a place as that at the moment. Yeah. And I think where I am is that in a really boring way, it's too early to tell if we've had a good window or not, because the biggest question mark from the last two summer transfer windows has been replacing Alexander Mitrovich and placing Sharapalini. Those are the two biggest things that have happened to the club on pitch. On the latter, Polina, we've not really seen what Marco's solution to that is because I presume Sanderberger has a role in that given that we spent money on him and Marco keeps referring to him as his six. So until we see what that partnership looks like, who is in it, how it plays, we don't really know. So if that's a complete miss, and we're going to look porous in midfield, and the answer is Andreas at eight forever and the rest of it, then we've not had a good window because we've not addressed the gaping hole that that is that Joao's departure leaves, but we might have said, let's wait and see on that. And then the problem of the last window and somehow of Mitrovich going, we still don't really have our answer on whether Rodrigo Muniz is starting number nine in the Premier League. We hope we do. The first three games of the season haven't definitively solved that problem. We don't know. So that's still out there. And then the last bit of the puzzle that we're trying to work out is, and I think people keep on forgetting this, is that whenever you talk about what Fulham are doing in their midfield, the midfield are having to pass the ball a lot more because we lost toast, who is a big part of how we played out the back. And we haven't seen your commander come to the team yet. I think we're all quite confident that he's going to fulfill that role better than toast in it. So I think we'll be okay. But you know, sort of the third best window, I just, I don't, I don't know what that means. And I don't think it really, I don't think it can really be said until particularly we see where we are at strike and where we are at just home to midfield. And we've got two home games coming up. You know, if Rodrigo Muniz doesn't score a goal in those two games, people are going to start to worry. And if we continue to look unbalanced in midfield, people are going to start to worry. And that's when Fulham started looking down, not up the table. So I hope that's not the case. It's the concern as well that, I mean, even if Rodrigo Muniz, like, does come good again, does have a patch like he did last season, scores some goals. He was never the replacement for Mitrovich. Like, no one expected him to be. No one at the club expected him to be. It was more just a circumstance that he got that opportunity. So is it a worry that this huge key area that is now over a year since it was filled? There's been no replacement. As I said before, OK, I don't think we can completely replace Paulineia. But if he if Berg isn't the answer there, is it going to be something that, again, we just overlook because for whatever reason, I don't know, but we just not taking responsibility of these these huge holes that have suddenly appeared with the loss of two of our best ever players. Does this necessitate a change in the way we play? Marco has has his step playing. I was bemoaning all last year, no plan B. Does this mean that we will see or I guess we will have to see a slightly different, slightly different Fulham as we move forward? Yeah. And Marco, when we're not playing, well, I love this national break. And I don't think we really had a sense of where Fulham were going last season until post-international break. And we actually looked pretty dire at the start of last season. Everyone forgets how Paul we looked and Raul Jimenez couldn't score goals. And then suddenly he could, and Tom Cairney was suddenly back in the team and we built up in a two-in midfield. And everything changed. So when I say wait and see, it's not me trying to be boring and get out the question, but we are genuinely going to have to wait and see what Marco has got in store with a collection of players. On Pleanir and replacing him, I think we've replaced some physical presence with Burger. And I think that what we put next to him and what that partnership is, maybe we've replaced him in Africa. I wouldn't be surprised if one of our other midfielders in Reed or Cairney is off this coming summer. And then we bring in another sort of pivot player and we replace Pleanir and aggregate that way. On Mitrovich, I just think that the amount of money it costs to buy a striker in the current market, for whom you have absolutely no guarantee that they're going to do anything. You saw the numbers that were being quoted for Armand de Broglie, who we saw very little from in his time at full up. I just think the club took the view that better the devil you know in Mooners, because you'd spend big money on somebody who's as much for question markers as Mooners is, so why not try the one that you've got? And maybe they'll have to roll the dice again, if it's not worked? So the one striking... The young men at Birmingham who might be worth all of them. No, we're going to do that now, are we? Great, great minds, because I was going to say there was one striking option that we were all hoping to see a lot of this year, and I think on the last part I was on, I said I was really hoping he'd stay, but Jay Sandsfield has left, he went to Birmingham on Transfer Deadline Day. I'm going to start this by saying there's a lot of people who are very upset about this, and dear listener, if you are one of those people, I'm putting my hand on my heart, I feel for you, and I understand why you feel the way you do about us selling Jay Sandsfield. 15 million pounds, new English, great British pounds, quids, what a 15 million. I don't care how much we like the kid, he's got a great story, we've seen 20 minutes of him, he looks great, he's scored against Birmingham, which was really, really funny. 15 million pounds, we, as Fulham supporters, bitch and complain about us not getting decent transfer fees for the players we sell, four Jay Sandsfield, granted for some reason he was crack to the new owners at Birmingham, but I'm sorry, 15 million. Dear listener, I would have driven him to Birmingham for 15 million plus five in add-ons and a weird football manager 100 grand if they get promoted this year, which just in some afterthought, I was like someone put that in crayon at the bottom of the contract, 15 million pounds. Sound, do we have to step in at this point? He's just going to say 15 million pounds for the rest of the pot. I look after the Twitter account for this thing, the people have been losing their minds and the people are wrong, because it's 15 million pounds. So I wasn't upset by it, but I was sad, I was sad that he has gone because I think for a long time we have had a lot of hope for him and he has been talked up, he's been talked up by Marco Silva and he was talked up by Gordon Davies on the flip-flakes when he said he sees him as the natural successor to his gold scoring record. So there was hype and we sent him out on loan, he went to Exeter, went to Birmingham, it looked like the natural progression that he was going to eventually come in and many times on the podcast last season, we were talking about our striking options and what we were going to look like for next season and he was always in the conversation. It's like, well, we will have him back, he will be an option. So the fact that he's gone, so late in the window, it has has saddled me. You're right, it's an absolutely ridiculous deal. What I will say is I don't think 15 million pounds for a striker, a young striker is that much even an unproven one. I think you will see when Liverpool, Chelsea or Massey sell a young player like that who's had a similar amount of gain time, it's always for money like that and no one really seems to bat an eyelid, but they're usually going to other clubs, maybe lower Premier League clubs, clubs in Europe, where this becomes absolutely insane is the fact that it's a League One club that has bolted and obviously the Birmingham fans have great affection for him and it was just a saga that has sort of run all summer. Birmingham got very excited that they were going to try and make this. I don't even know if it was true to start with. I suspect it was one of those rumours that started sort of snowballed and Birmingham's owners, which are essentially trying to replicate Chelsea in League One and Chelsea starts in the transfer market. I've just got caught up in it all and got in with this absurd offer on Deadline Day and I don't think we've got any, we had any option other than to accept it in the end. It's incredible, but I hate Birmingham City, I've always hated Birmingham City, I was delighted that they got relegated even though - Oh, it's always bubbling away, even though Jay was on loan their last season, I was so happy when they got relegated because I've been flirting with it for seasons. There we go, Rory, do that for me, I'm going to leave for a second. I still hope he goes on and has a career, not just because we have potentially 5 million add-ons and a 20% sell-on fee. I'm glad you brought up the 100,000 because as I saw that, I was like, you're reading through the deal, it's like 50 million geez, like 5 million add-ons, what? 20% something, oh my god, and then 100,000, I just burst out laughing, so what's the point of that? Is that essentially the full and Christmas party when they sell promotion at the end of December? But yeah, I do, I wish him the best, I kind of, yeah, I hope he does it in similar, gets a jude-bending and moves somewhere and we coin a bit more cash, but yeah, it happens so late that it's left our light-looking attack, perhaps even lighter. I mean, the only thing I was going to say on stands for is that I sort of, even though it's a move to League One, I sort of respect him not wanting to be the third-choice striker and the sixth winger in a Premier League side for the sake of it. He's 22 soon, it's time to play, and I think that's probably his position on it as well, so best of luck too in that sense. And look, I think the money made sense. I think that the irritation for Marco Silva would be that he wanted an attacker in before stands for it when out the door, stands for it when we brought one attacker in in Reese Nelson, who we haven't talked about, but I think it's quite exciting and quite versatile in a number of ways, and I think that's a good deal for Fullon. But it does mean that our striking options are, and by the way, I don't necessarily think Marcus or Jay stands for does a strike on his system, but that's besides the point now. Our striking options are Moon is Rauhibanes and Carlos Finisius, who is still looking about, I believe. And yeah, that's scary in some ways. Yes, you've got Rita's, which is really exciting. Apparently, there was supposed to be an actual transfer. They just didn't have time to the paperwork, so it's it's alone. So hopefully he'll get some game time and stuff. Because again, those are some boys make our front four look a little bit better. One player who wasn't as keen on Fullon, we're now finding out, is dear old Ernest Numaya, who got in international, and the reports coming out of the keep and other French papers today, were that during his medical, he went and hid so that he didn't have to come to Fullon. And there's, we can make a lot of jokes and we may very well do, but whatever is going on with John Techster, Palace, Leon, Everton, if you're fans of those clubs, you have our best wishes. We have been in places where our club has looked lost, and that guy is making a whole lot of clubs look really lost at the moment. So much so that one of their players, who he's put the whole squad up for sale, or something silly like that there, had to go hide in the cupboard so that he didn't make a transfer to London. I even deleted a tweet where we were going to make fun of that, because I didn't think it was fair, because there's something else going on there that that is that is not good. Yeah, I mean, there's the initial amusement of like, just a player, and we managed if you're doing the medical, like, it's something like, Doctor, what happened? I've lost your player, I'm so sorry, like that, that is that is quite funny. And then there's like the other side of it, where you're like, this is like a 20-year-old Ghanaian kid who's been forced to go somewhere, he doesn't want to go all bit for lots of money, but like, it is a little bit sinister as well. So like, yeah, it's a very hard one. I mean, are we assuming that story's true? I mean, it sounds almost too ridiculous, but the life is sometimes. Lequip is not a paper that tends to make a hell of a lot of stuff up, I understand. So there's got to be something in it. And given the stories coming out of Leon at the moment, given that what the hell is going on there, nobody's really quite sure. It's not, not surprising, but. I suspect things like that happen more than we realize, because we've already got one player in our ranks who has a history for it. Raul Jimenez was supposed to sign for Westtown from Ben Theka about five years ago, six years ago, and supposedly overslept and missed his flight. But that's, I think, that has been disputed elsewhere. So yeah, it does happen. Just to go back to Reese Nelson, I mean, you both seem sort of quite bullish on how exciting that is. And I'd like to know based on what, because I don't really know much about him at all. Me and my friend, Paul, often talk about a great Mark Lawrence moment. And about 2005, 2006, England played the Netherlands in international friendly. It was live on BBC. I can't remember who's doing a commentary guy, Mo Ray or Steve Wilson or someone. But they just, I brought on Klaus Jan Huntala, who was just a boy to a 20 or something at the time. And commentators said, "So Mark, what can you tell us about this Klaus Jan Huntala as he came on? Have you been like banging him in for he or even?" And Lawrence just went, "Absolutely nothing." And that's the kind of the vibe I'm getting from Reese Nelson. I've asked two friends who have asked their season tickets. And they were both kind of a little bit flustered by it and said, "You know, it works hard." So I don't know what to expect with him. I'm excited to see. I hope he's another player that we've picked up off of Arsenal, who comes and does a great job for us. But yeah, I just don't know. Two Arsenal fans I played with yesterday said, "There's a player there, if you can find him." He's not hiding from coming to South West London. So that's a positive. Someone asked me for data on Reese Nelson. I was like, "He's played like 400 Premier League minutes. I can't put data out in like any good fact. It's not enough sample size." But like the profile of player, the idea that he can play off both wings, that he's got a good turn of pace, that he's got a good first time. So it's not enough data for Kish to put a graphic out. You know, we've got issues. I mean, they're easy, they're easy retweets. So you've got to put them out when you can. But it wasn't worth it for Reese Nelson. It felt too dodgy. Right. Let's wrap this up. We're waffling. And Ernest, if you are listening, we do hope all is well. And things become clearer for you. Is he out yet? Clearly he's talking to someone from the Keep. So yeah, something's happening there. Let's do some any other business. Right. Important things coming up on the 20th of September. The Paul Allen Project have their charity quiz night at Sutton United. And they do quite well. They want to get 25 defibrillators in and around. At the moment, they're up to about 19. So whatever support anybody can give, please head to thepoleallenproject.org. So that's Allen as an A-L-A-M. Paul thepoleallenproject.org for more information. And if you get up to Sutton for the quiz, there's cash prizes and prizes and things going around for that. And according to Morris, it's a good time. And if ever you need someone to tell you if something's a good time, it's dear old. It's a good time for him, but ready for anyone else. Ignore that. Go support them. They are a fantastic project. And for those of us that we're there at the game. Back to the dishes afterwards. Yeah. But for those of us that were at that game, we always send Claire our very best. That was a dark day at Craven Cottage. Full of women are in action at Motsborough Park on Sunday. Now the ladies are flying. They have scored 13 goals and conceded none in their first two games. They're top of the table by Miles Uncle Difference. They're really exciting. We need to cover a little bit more about them, because I think this year is going to be something to keep an eye on. So they're at Motsborough Park against Ashford United. So if you're around, do see if you can check that one out. Pressed in a way in the Caribou League Cup has been confirmed for Tuesday, the 17th of September at 1945. No ticket details on that. We have to send a shout out to our ever increasingly weird sponsorship team, who've today announced our latest CFD trading partner for the club. It's an outfit called UIUX official. So they have joined on a multi-year deal. They're going to do all the things that apparently tighten capital management we're going to do for us the other year. And to wrap things up, from everyone here at Fulham Focus, we want to send our best to John Pencil and his family and the other players who were in the car crash with them. Word is that he's recovering, so that is great news, but that was scary news to receive about our former right back, who, in my mind, should be higher up than that greatest player's list. So you didn't make your admission about your shirt? The only player I've ever had put on the back of a Fulham shirt is John Pencil. So I was cast up when the news came out that he was in the car accident, but he's recovering, which is great. I'd still managed to squeeze into that, I think he's in the LG top, from time to time, it's not a good look, but it's still just about it. When Kenny Tite starts praying at Kickoff and then does a lap of honour at the end of the game, I'll be a true believer like everyone else. Staring back to my lord. What a character. And like you're saying, hopefully, he's well. There is something about the pantheon of the vaud balls at right back at Fulham that sort of become court heroes. And maybe that's what Timothy Castano needs to do to finally get true love from the Fulham fans. He just needs to be a little bit weird or he's just a bit too functional and a bit too normal. He needs to get a turn up for the games on a folding bike. Yeah, folding bike, lap of honour, changes name, you know, halfway through his tenure, anything like that. But yeah, fingers crossed foot for John Pencil. Great character. Yeah, 100%. John, all the very best to you, sir, and speedy recovery. Gentlemen, this has been a giggle. Thank you so much. We will be back. So it's international break. We may be back next week. I don't know yet. That's up to Jay Mack, who reminds us when we have to record. So we will see, but there's always Fulham things to discuss. And who knows, you know, if our new trading sponsor wants a sponsored podcast, you know, there's other podcasts out there. So. Kish, Sam, thank you so much for joining me. Dear listener, thank you for joining us. This has been your Fulham Focus podcast. As always, come on, you whites. Check in on your friends. Make sure everybody's okay. And thank you so much for listening. (upbeat music)