In the furious neverending November rain, Fulham made one mistake and lost the game. James McFadden, a quality player in an average Birmingham side, clipped a ball over the Fulham back four to Lee Bowyer, Bowyer flipped the ball over Mark Schwarzer, and the ball nestled in the net. 1-0.  Bowyer was clean through because only three of the Fulham back four pushed up at the same time, Brede Hangeland delaying for a split second that ruined everything.

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Liverpool traveled to play Fulham in the English Premier League on Saturday, October 31, 2009. After their huge win last weekend against Manchester United, Liverpool looks to continue their recent good form.

Fulham beats Liverpool 3-1 Video Highlights

1st Half

Liverpool started out dominating possession and chances in the match.

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John Terry (C): Yawning during meaningless match in Ukraine

Just in case you find yourself in a "which is better" debate with a Serie A or La Liga fan during the international break, here are a few Premier League players who will captain their countries on the weekend.
John Terry: Ukraine v.

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When Arsenal won against Standard Liege, having come from 2 goals down, the performance was poor but I thought the way we won the match was important. We played poorly and managed to produce a comeback from a couple of goals down. Every team needs games like that to give them the belief they can salvage something when things are going wrong.

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The long and dangerous saga of Jonathan Greening has ended, and now he is a Fulham player. ("Greening signs!" says an excited email from the club.) Annoyingly, he wasn't registered for Saturday's game because his agent refused to sign off on the deal until 90 minutes beyond the deadline, following six hours of haggling over his cut in the deal.

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The news is good, and soon we may see some changes.

First, Mark Viduka.

I'd see this as a kind of Gera signing, a freebie with good odds of paying off. If the wages aren't silly then it's a great low risk, high reward signing.  People worry about Viduka's attitude, but if he doesn't do what he's meant to Roy won't play him.

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Right. If I were to launch a new range of mineral water (called Tooting Springs) and Waitrose agreed that it was so lovely they had to have it, I would have some hard thinking to do over packaging.

If - and to do this I would have to have really impressed Waitrose I was allowed to place blue bottles of Tooting Springs in half of their stores, and brown bottles of Tooting Springs in the other store, do you think they would sell equally?

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Thanks to Steven for the link -Â nice Dempsey profile piece from FIFA:

Really good stuff. Good kid and good player.  There are some fine goals in that mix too they might not look spectacular, but there's a lot of skill there.  He's cemented his place in the team now, I think, and it'll be interesting to see where he goes from here.

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Diomansy Kamara, seen here doing his bit to ensure we held Derby County to a 2-2 draw, is missing.

Here is the preview of the Fulham v Australian Teams games.

The relevant bit for us is:

Meanwhile, up-front, Roy will select from the tried and tested trio of Andy Johnson, Bobby Zamora and Erik Nevland, with Eddie Johnson providing additional competition after his spell at Cardiff last term.

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I am, I know, something of a broken record on this subject, but I've found more proof so bear with me.

It has been my contention that Bobby Zamora, while not playing as well as we might hope, has not been as bad as people say. He has played in a team that does not emphasise attacking play, does not commit numbers to attack, which makes it easier for defenders to close down chances.

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Meant to post this earlier but reminded by a post on TiFF.

What Wilson's seeing is an evolution where attacking midfielders are key and where full-backs are also very important (as documented here).

It's something we've talked about a lot here, how this Fulham team is narrow in the middle for defensive reasons, but also (theoretically) to get the midfielders into the box to score.

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Roy with a good old chat before tomorrow's game. Davies and Johnson out, Nevland and Gera in.   Good points re. Brede Hangeland: he's been excellent, but excellent as part of a great team defensive effort. True.

Fans forum comments from the club. Interesting times, eh?

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More good stuff.

Simon Davies gets a nice hat tip there. He won't be playing, possibly for the rest of the year, but Roy singles him out as (essentially) an ideal pro. I think that's fair. Davies has been a 7/10 player almost every week, and as I've said before, getting him involved seems to be important for the team to really play well.

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keep checking Championship at Best, folks. Colin's edging closer to something extraordinary.

In his latest work, he has established that, shooting from each area of the pitch, certain players should score x times.

He has therefore got a 'difficulty' rating for each shot, which is based on how often people in the league overall score with that sort of shot.

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La jornada sabatina de la Premier ha dejado al Liverpool de Benítez con la clara oportunidad de ponerse a un solo punto del Manchester United, siempre que sean capaces de derrotar al Aston Villa en Anfield en el día de mañana (17.00h Teledeporte). El conjunto de Ferguson y el Chelsea cosecharon sendas derrotas fuera de casa, [. Click to continue reading...