For the first ten minutes of this match, it appeared we didn't learn anything for the Besitkas match. Immediately we started lobbing the ball forward looking for a cheap goal instead of being patient, working hard, and trying to open up the Fulham defense. Thankfully we appeared to realize this and slowly worked our way back to playing intelligent football.
Surprisingly, for the most part, Fulham is not keeping ten behind the ball, but are still effectively absorbing our attack. It's probably the fact that luck seems to be more on their side and less on ours though. We've created chances despite appearing to be somewhat out of sync, but either Fulham was able to smother such efforts or we place it wide.
I can't really complain about anyone's effort on the whole, but Mascherano and Crouch are definitely not having their best matches. Masche is giving the ball away nearly every other time he touches it and Crouch has been wholly ineffective. The England International has collected more fouls than shots and he has turned the ball over virally. Basically just your average outing for the forward.
Our best player so far has been Arbeloa, who's been simply amazing. Twice he's taken on a Fulham defender on the flank and twice he's made him look like a donkey. He's also made some superb tackles and the yellow card was for incidental contact, which is ridiculous. Other players that have put in solid performances have been Voronin and Hyypia.
I'm hoping we come out in the second and patiently enforce our will. If we can just keep passing, working the ball around, something will eventually open up. If we do bring some other players in, I hope Torres, Lucas, and Babel all get to contribute to our effort. We look the better side and a draw here would be just as bad as a loss in my opinion.
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