Anyone watching Fulham in the first half against Leicester City would have presumed they were in a comfortable position on 40 points and just there for a Saturday afternoon practice match. That was the level that the newly appointed boss Scott Parker got from his boys as Leicester’s players strolled around the field passing the ball about without little concern that any of them would be tackled. “Tackled, what’s that?” the Fulham fans must have been shouting.
It was no surprise that the first goal from the home side came following yet another defensive error, this time by Callum Chambers who lost the ball in his own half and the youngster Tielemans fired home after 21 minutes. The biggest shock was that Fulham managed to get to the break only one down, as Rico looked unsure on a few occasions in goal, and the defence was shaky as usual.
Parker brought Ayite on for the poor Sessegnon who once again looked completely out of his depth at the start of the second half. Suddenly (similar to last week against Chelsea) Fulham came forward as a team. They began to look like a team wanting to compete. Ayite broke down the right and came inside and mis-hit his shot, but it deflected off Maguire and crossed the line for a Fulham equaliser.
This was a turning point in the match as the away team began to pass the ball around, and their fans chanting at every touch. It was now Fulham that looked the most likely to win the game. The excitement of scoring a goal, and gaining the upper-hand for a few minutes, was too much for the ardent Fulham supporter to expect would last. As per usual, yet another defensive blunder, this time from Nordtveit, giving the ball away led to Jamie Vardy putting Leicester back in front with his 100th goal for his club.
Leicester took control again and it was inevitable that a third goal was coming. It was Vardy again, after Odoi made a clumsy challenge against the young Barnes, who crossed for their main man to tap home.
Why does it take 45 minutes before the Fulham players start to play Parker must be thinking?
Against a rather poor Leicester City team today, Fulham had their best chance to take some points away from home. Instead, they failed miserably. The only players worth a mention today were, Babel, Bryan (who was clearly Fulham’s best defender by a long shot), Ayite for his goal and Seri for his 23 minutes on the field. The rest were very poor overall. Cairney could only pass backwards in the first half, Mitrovic was again starved of the ball, and apart from one superb save from Rico, who is lacking confidence in his own penalty area.
As Fulham wave goodbye to the Premier League, Scott Parker has 8 remaining games in charge to prove to the Khan’s and the faithful Fulham fans, that he can motivate this team. With the stress now lifted as we all know it will be Championship football again next season, we are looking for some fighting spirit from our players, and some entertainment would be nice by attacking these 8 teams, even if we let in a bucketful of goals. We already have a -40 goals against figure, so another 20 or so won’t make any difference.
Let’s see some GOALS to give the fans some joy to remember the close season by.
Previous article by Brian Gower