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Fulham – Trouble Around the Corner?

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I have been holding back from writing anything recently due to the fact that I have failed to muster the enthusiasm to look at our problems.

As we know, every good Fulham fan knows trouble is only round the corner…

However, it has become quite clear that three players, key to our spine, are quite clearly more important than many originally thought.

Firstly, we have Andrew Johnson. The main thing people levelled at him was his lack of goals last season. Despite this, I always admired AJ’s work rate as it is up there, similar to McBride standards. AJ’s constant running makes him an easy target for a forward pass and despite the efforts of Nevland and Kamara, we didn’t have that player flying into the channels.

Next, we have the enigma that is Bobby Zamora. Now, I have criticised him in the past but have been encouraged by his early season form this time around. The brilliance of Zamora however, seems to lie in his ability to drop deep and pick up the ball and lay it off to one of the wingers. Again, despite their best efforts, Nevland and Kamara aren’t this type of player.

Finally, we have Captain Marvel. Danny Murphy was a major loss yesterday. His concise, efficient passing and often adventurous game was lacking yesterday as Greening struggled to fill the void which in turn forced Etuhu further forward. The Murphy-Etuhu combination was one of the cornerstones of last season’s excellent post December run of form. Take Murphy out and we have no natural replacement as Greening will need time to fully grasp the role whilst Riise seems more favoured out wide and Dikgacoi is seemingly back up to Etuhu in that enforcer role.

I hate to say it, but we were awful yesterday and it definitely seems that Johnson, Zamora and Murphy are vital to the team’s all round play. Let`s hope they get back into training as soon as possible.

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