Have you ever seen anything like it?

One of the worst first half performances in memory. Newcastle were very impressive, well drilled, pressurising perfectly, timing their confrontations and ganging up on our players relentlessly. We couldn't keep the ball. They could, spraying it around and running us ragged.

Will need to step up tonight

What a wonderful night of football yesterday was, if only for the one game which mattered. Nicklas Bendtner did us no favour as he squandered an early chance to put his team ahead but Sunderland won it right at the death to beat Roberto Mancini's Manchester City.

These dark nights by the Thames aren't half special, eh? A lively 0-0 turned into a scintillating 1-0 win, Clint Dempsey's late goal nicking the points with five minutes left. We more or less deserved them, riding our luck to a degree but mainly doing enough, then taking advantage when Liverpool lost a man after Spearing's red card.

A strange revelation hit me today. It's not surprising that Fulham fans don't all agree about what they see; it's surprising that they agree on so much.

The slightly pretentious root of this thought is as follows: this morning I was reading Tim Gautreaux, the American story writer.

With the benefit of hindsight...

The midfield issue

Injured Murphy + growing realisation that teams can stop him and stop us + Wolves impressive midfield work = dodgy performance.

Murphy's legs will go, but it's as much the team's problem as his. That's why I liked Sidwell coming on and smashing things around a bit.

August is the month in the football calendar for untrammelled optimism, and most pre-season predictions for their team this season were less than flattering, but the supporters of Wolverhampton Wanderers will finish the second weekend of the season with something of a smile on their face as they look at a league table that sees their team in second place on the Premier League table after a comfortable win against Fulham at Molineux this afternoon.

There are several ways to skin a cat. Here are some of Fulham's finest performances in the last two seasons, and the starting elevens for each:

Man Utd 10/11, 2-2: Stockdale, Paintsil, Hughes, Hangeland, Konchesky, Duff, Etuhu, Murphy, Davies, Dempsey, Zamora

Spurs 10/11, 4-0: Stockdale, Paintsil, Hughes, Hangeland, Salcido, Duff, Sidwell, Murphy, Dempsey, Dembele, Johnson

Juventus 09/10, 4-1: Schwarzer, Kelly, Hughes, Hangeland, Konchesky, Duff, Baird, Etuhu, Davies, Gera, Zamora

Basel 09/10, 3-2: Schwarzer, Smalling, Hughes, Kelly, Etuhu, Riise, Murphy, Greening, Gera, Zamora

Liverpool 09/10, 3-1: Schwarzer, Paintsil, Hughes, Hangeland, Konchesky, Dempsey, Greening, Baird, Duff, Zamora, Kamara

Man Utd 09/10, 3-0: Schwarzer, Paintsil, Hangeland, Hughes, Konchesky, Duff, Murphy, Baird, Dempsey, Gera, Zamora

It's a team game, no?

Joey Barton goes all 1984 on Dickson Etuhu

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act."

Joey Barton quoting George Orwell after his Twittering of Newcastle's transfer policy angered the club so much he's been made available on a free transfer.

Per the offal:

Fulham Football Club is delighted to confirm the signing of Pajtim Kasami on a 4 year deal for an undisclosed fee which will see the player at Fulham until the summer of 2015.

At 6′ 1″ (erm sorry, 1.87 m), Kasami is our second-tallest midfielder behind Dickson Etuhu, and only behind Hangeland, Etuhu and Senderos as far as outfield players go.

There was an interesting comment on Twitter today from Tor-Kristian Karlsen, a football scout. Karlsen noted that while Premiership clubs do have an overview for the world's footballers, most are, I quote:

Tor-Kristian Karlsen
karlsentk Tor-Kristian Karlsen
many people (justifiably) puzzled that few premier league clubs were seriously in for arturo vidal (no idea if arsenal interest was genuine)

personally i think the reason is lack of contacts and connections.

Faroe Play Fulham kick off season 2011-12 is a post from: Just Football

It's 7pm on June 30th, precisely one month after Swansea's play-off final triumph over Reading heralded the close of the season. Hoards of football fans flow out of Putney Bridge station, some adorned with white shirts, some carrying beers, but all looking distinctly out of season.

Everyone 'knows' that Franz Beckenbauer was brilliant. In a recent Guardian poll he was the first defender selected in their greatest team of all time.

I think everyone is right Beckenbauer really was an astonishing player but I wonder how many of the voters had actually seen him play before making their choice?

"Etuhu hands Fulham fitness boost."

Is this what the headline means? Etuhu gave Mark Hughes a bar of chocolate? The Boost in question has Guarana in it, which gives you energy.

Why can't journalists say what they mean? "Dickson Etuhu is fit for Saturday" doesn't lose much does it?

LIVERPOOL, England — John Pantsil's second half own goal helped Liverpool to a nervous 1-0 win over Fulham at Anfield on Wednesday. It was Liverpool's first back-to-back victories since beating Bolton and Chelsea almost three months ago as Kenny Dalglish savoured his first win at Anfield in his second spell as Liverpool manager.

Fernando Torres is back to his scoring self it seems with three goals in two games for Liverpool and has shown solid signs of his early days at the Anfield outfit where ‘The Child' was scoring goals for fun.
The two goals he scored at the weekend against Wolves marked his 62nd and 63rd on his 100th league appearance for the Red half of Merseyside.

Great fun at the Cottage today, with Fulham belting six past an impressive but wide open Peterborough side.

Games like these allow all of our players to show off their skills; against weaker opponents they all become supersized versions of themselves. So Danny Murphy was very much the playmaker, firing balls over the top and through the middle like a quarterback; Dickson Etuhu was the overgrown spoiler, too strong for his league 1 challengers; Diomansy Kamara was the thoroughbread raider, picking his moments and scorching through the defence onto Murphy's bombs; Hangeland and Hughes were impregnable; Damian Duff was a lightning quick winger with dangerous ideas.

Let's not get too excited - West Brom are a bad team in worse form but you can't beat a good 3-0 home win to boost morale, can you?

A strange game in the end. Fulham bossed the first 20 minutes without looking threatening, and when West Brom grew into the game it felt like West Ham all over again.