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Daily Fulham- 146 years and counting
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Gavin reflects on a difficult afternoon for Fulham as they exited the FA Cup at the hands of Crystal Palace.
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
Every club. Every day. The Global Sports Podcast Network.
Fulham's Disappointing Defeat to Crystal Palace
00:00:07
Speaker
work Hello and welcome back to the Daily Fulham Podcast brought to you by the Global Sports Podcast Network bringing you the latest news and views from across every Premier League side as well as women's football.
00:00:20
Speaker
My name is Gavin Ruffell and today i am looking back on the devastating result, the devastating events of Saturday. Que sera, sera, it's not meant to be, to be.
Pre-Match Hopes and Challenges
00:00:31
Speaker
As often in football, as often in sport, it's the hope that kills you, isn't it? There was a lot of hope heading into this one that this might finally be Fulham's year to at least get back to Wembley for a semi-final or to possibly win their first piece of major silverware given the teams left in the competition.
00:00:46
Speaker
But unfortunately, their hopes and dreams have come crashing down with that 3-0 defeat to Crystal Palace. Second time they've lost at home to Crystal Palace in the space of just over a month. So here I am to relive it all.
00:00:59
Speaker
First of all, it was a lovely, beautiful day on the banks of the River Thames. The atmosphere was up. i think Marco Silva spoke beforehand. He wanted to recreate that atmosphere that we saw last season in the second leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final against Liverpool.
00:01:12
Speaker
And we saw that. The flags were out. The fans were out in their droves. There was a real energy and atmosphere at kick-off. The team was what I kind of anticipated when I was when i was going through it in the preview show. There were only a couple of places I felt that were up for debate.
00:01:27
Speaker
Maybe to the casual observer, to the to the person that doesn't watch Fulham, they might have ah questioned why Raul Jimenez wasn't starting, but I wasn't surprised at all. I felt Rodrigo Munez would get the start and I felt he warranted that start given the fact that he'd started all of the previous games in the Cups.
00:01:43
Speaker
Also, Raul Jimenez has been away on international duty, he hasn't he? yet Obviously, racking up the air miles and playing a couple of games in in quick succession there. So, I felt it was the right decision to play Munez and The only contentious one I felt was would he play Willian or would he play Adama Torre and he opted for Willian and I think that was fair enough given the outing he had had.
00:02:03
Speaker
Against Spurs, as for Crystal Palace, we knew Jean-Philippe Miteto was coming back. He was wearing that protective gear across his face, across his head, so it would have been interesting to see How he would have done just in aerial duels and whether he would have quite felt at it. It would have been understandable if there were some doubts going into this one, given this was his first bit of action since that horrific injury.
00:02:21
Speaker
I felt it was a bit of a boost, actually, that Will Hughes wasn't in the Crystal Palace side. I think he's the middle of a suspension, but he was available for this game, but was just out through illness. So Walton got an opportunity to start. he didn't start in the outing at Craven Cottage, which Palace won 2-0.
00:02:37
Speaker
Also a milestone for Marco Silva. This is his 500th. ah career game as a manager so on to the game itself then and fuller made a really bright vibrant start as i said the atmosphere is up fuller with feeding on that and palace were on the back foot for much of the first half of the first half is an early opportunity for rodrigo muniz which he creates by himself out muscles mark gay he i think he turns la croix and just shoots wide maybe if he was more up to speed with the game if this comes slightly later in the half he's able to do a bit better with his shot but the early signs are good for fulham and crystal palace can't get a foothold in the game i think glasner afterwards he said for the first 20 minutes that crystal palace looked rusty and i spoke about that myself i was interested to see how they would do in this one given the fact that they haven't played competitive football in three weeks
00:03:28
Speaker
But for them, it was just soaking up pressure for that first 20, 25 minutes and making sure you don't go behind. And for Fulham, you have to score when you're
Fulham's Possession Without Conversion
00:03:37
Speaker
on top. You have to make the most of the possession you have because eventually Crystal Palace will grow into the game.
00:03:42
Speaker
They're in good form themselves and we know what their away records like. So you have to be able to punish teams when they're not quite at it. Fulham weren't quite able to do that. But at the same time, they were keeping Crystal Palace's key players quiet. The likes Eze and Mateta were struggling to to get on the ball. Munoz, who I feel is a really good attacking wing-back, he was limited in his darts forward.
00:04:03
Speaker
But the first glimmer, the first moment for Crystal Palace arises from an Eze free-kick, which he tries to take a ah clever one into water and eventually gets cleared out and jefferson lerma strikes one on the volley from 25 yards out where leno's beaten but it strikes the the crossbar so that was the first real glimpse we saw from crystal pallet as far as an attacking threat goes up until that point fulham had marshalled them really well and there's one drive and run forward from calvin bassi as well where he out muscles i think it's just my lassar carries on his run
00:04:34
Speaker
Receives the ball from Willian. He cuts it back to Andreas Pereira. Andreas Pereira scuffs a shot wide. But it was all full for the first half an hour. You just maybe felt they could have done more to test Dean Henderson. But at the same time we know Crystal Palace. What they're good at. Their solidity. Their organisation
Crystal Palace's Game-Changing Goals
00:04:49
Speaker
defensively. But then out of the blue Crystal Palace.
00:04:51
Speaker
They go in front don't they? And it is against the run of play. It's a diagonal. From right to left, Tyreek Mitchell does well to keep the ball in play as he looks like he's going out on the left touchline. He plays it infield to Eze. He's up against Sassalukic. He just drops his shoulder, creates space for himself, and then without any hesitation unleashes right-footed shot, which beats Bernd Lennar before he knows. It goes into his far post, in off the post,
00:05:14
Speaker
Crystal Palace are one up and from a Fulham perspective you kind of scratch your head you're thinking how does it come to this because they've not been in the game at all and they've marshaled their Z. They've been tight to him they've not given him that time and space but the one moment the one time he does have time and space he kills Fulham.
00:05:29
Speaker
From that point on there's a bit of a shell shock in the ground because for 30 minutes Fulham were doing all the running all the pressing but Crystal Palace get that goal and it goes some bad to worse shortly after that.
00:05:40
Speaker
Fulham, maybe they're still thinking about it. They're not quite recovered because Crystal Palace go to an infront and Eze again is the man involved here. He's the one up against the touchline this time on the left side.
00:05:51
Speaker
And then Sander Berger has a decision to make. Does he engage with Eze and try to win the ball but leave himself at risk of Eze dribbling it past him or does he back off?
00:06:02
Speaker
Berger, he decides to back off. He retreats and it proves to be costly. Berger, he doesn't know if Eze's going to his left or his right. Ezee shifts it onto his left foot and measures an inch perfect cross for Saar, who's made a run to the near post. Bassey hasn't tracked him and it's a simple header for Saar.
00:06:19
Speaker
2-0 to Palace. It's shell-shocking on the ground because you're thinking, how could it possibly be 2-0 given the balance of play? But Crystal Palace, they're incisive, they're ruthless, they're efficient in what they do. They score from the attacks they have on Fulham.
00:06:32
Speaker
Whilst there was pretty possession, whilst there were crosses coming into the box, they didn't quite fashion the opportunities to get them in front, aside from that Rodrigo Meniz chance early on in the game. And this is a familiar position, familiar situation for Crystal Palace recently. We know their away form's been so good. They've been good at keeping clean sheets, so...
00:06:48
Speaker
It's a tall order, isn't it? To come from two goals down against a Crystal Palace side that don't concede many goals, it's a big task, isn't it? So Fulham have really got their work cut out as far as Mounted to come back in the second half.
00:07:00
Speaker
Was one contentious incident in that first half that was surrounding Adam Wart and whether or not he should have received the red card. He did Receive a booking quite early on in the game for his second foul. A late challenge on Willian after he had fouled Andreas Pereira. And then there's a second moment which there was a VAR check for for a kick out of Rodrigo Munez. It's a bit of a delayed fall for Munez. And it's silly from water. Maybe a lack of experience there.
00:07:23
Speaker
And on on another a day he could potentially have got himself sent off. I feel like... It probably would have been harsh if he was sent off, but he was playing with fire there and he knew from that moment on that any mistime challenge he made, he was probably going to be shown his marching orders.
00:07:39
Speaker
um But as it was, he got away with it. Crystal Palace scored two goals and they're in a commanding position from that point on. In the next part, I will talk you through the action in the second half. But before then, let me just tell you a little bit about our sponsors.
00:07:53
Speaker
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00:08:09
Speaker
If you're ready to tell your story, check out the link in the show description to learn more about Zencastr. So after the half-time break, you're looking for an instant reaction from Fulham to get themselves back into the game.
Second Half Struggles for Fulham
00:08:20
Speaker
No changes are made, and it follows a very similar pattern to what we saw in the first half hour, where Fulham were dominating in terms of possession. Crosses were coming into the box, but a lot of the those crosses, they lacked accuracy, or even when they were on the money, they were being headed away by likes of Gehi and Richards. Corners were coming in, and it was always a Crystal Palace man heading it away.
00:08:41
Speaker
We saw some changes to try and get them back into the game. Emile Smith-Rowe coming on, Adama Troere coming on, Sasa Lukic went off as did Andres Pereira. Andres Pereira didn't quite make the impact here as he did in the game against Spurs.
00:08:54
Speaker
They saw Alex Owebe drop back into the midfield and they just needed an injection of life into the play. Everything was in front of Palace and they were quite comfortable in dealing with it. There was one effort from Willian, which is a strike from distance, very similar range to where we saw Eze score his goal in the first half.
00:09:10
Speaker
It takes a deflection and Dean Henderson has to tip wide. I think that was Dean Henderson's first real meaningful bit of action in the entire game. I think they had one shot on target in the first half, but it was a pretty comfortable effort. So that was the one time, really, you can considering the dominance in terms of possession and its territory, they would have been disappointed that that was the first time that he had been sprung into action.
00:09:32
Speaker
From the result corner, it's Fulham's biggest chance of the game. For the first time from one of these corners, it's Fulham contact first. Anderson gets to head onto it and there's Bassi sliding in. It looks like he's got the hook goal at his mercy, but somehow it stays out.
00:09:46
Speaker
A contribution, a good defending and Bassi not being able to make solid enough contact and the lead stays at 2-0. From that point on, you kind of get the feeling that this is not meant to be. That needed to go in and if it it did, then you got 25 minutes of pressure. Crystal Palace might start to feel nerves and it's game on again, but The fact that that didn't go in, you kind of felt the writing was on the wall. Some more changes for Fulham, Cessignon and Jimenez coming on for Willian and Robinson, which meant two up top.
00:10:14
Speaker
Mateta and Warton coming off sensible decision to take Warton off. He could have done it half-time potentially to avoid him getting that red card, but he was largely trouble-free in the second half.
00:10:25
Speaker
and Nketi is one of the substitutes that comes on and he scores with one of his very first touches to make it 3-0 question marks about offside but Bassey is in fact playing him onside Nketi finishes it nicely and if Eddie Nketi is scoring against you it certainly isn't going to be your day is it because let's be fair he doesn't score goals so if strikers that don't score goals score against you yeah it's pretty much a write-off isn't it and from that moment on the game's done and dusted you're just waiting for full time Ball time comes, Crystal the Palace win 3-0 and it's a tough one to take, isn't it? As I said, there was a lot of hope coming into this game.
00:11:00
Speaker
I think it was a good opportunity to to possibly right the wrongs of what happened a month ago. That display against Crystal Palace was not good enough. But it was more of the same, wasn't it? and In fact, this was an even more emphatic win for Crystal Palace. so They march on to the semi-finals.
00:11:13
Speaker
Fulham exit and they've got the league to focus on now. And in the final part, I will wrap things up and give my final thoughts on the day and where this leaves Fulham here on in.
00:11:25
Speaker
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00:11:56
Speaker
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00:12:08
Speaker
As I said at the top, this was a genuine opportunity, realistic opportunity for Fulham to possibly lift silverware. There have been a lot of teams coming into the quarterfinal stage thinking that they have a genuine chance of winning their first piece of major silverware. Half of the teams of the quarterfinals had never won a major trophy and with hope comes expectation as well.
00:12:27
Speaker
But I always said this was a 50-50 game. I wasn't overly confident that Fulham would get the result in this game given Crystal Palace's improved form their form away from home and it came down to just moments of individual magic didn't it from Eze he's turned the game on his head when for the first half an hour ah he's not had any contribution at all but you give him time you give him space or give the player credit he creates that time and space for himself and it makes all the difference doesn't it he's that x-factor player you're looking for which maybe Fulham don't quite have I suppose they were looking for Emile Smith-Rowe to maybe be that x-factor player he's not proved to be so is he so
00:13:01
Speaker
Good players, great players, they can impact games when they've not had much opportunity to do so and he did just that didn't he and 2-0, I realistically didn't see Fulham coming back from that because of Crystal Palace's organisation and I did say I felt the first goal in this game was going to be crucial because Crystal Palace...
00:13:20
Speaker
It just plays into their hands then, doesn't it? Go on a goal in front and then we know what they're like on the counter-attack. They can be devastating. So the onus is all on Fulham when they're the ones chasing it then. And Crystal Palace, they can just say, go on, attack us, attack us, attack us.
00:13:35
Speaker
Because Fulham needs to commit more bodies forward and they can be ruthless on on the counter-attack. So 1-0, you're still in the game. the The second goal was an absolute body blow. To go in 2-0 down at half-time when you felt that you controlled certainly the first half-hour was ah a real shock to the system and it was going to be difficult to recover from that. and you know ah A lot of people have understandably been very...
00:13:57
Speaker
upset In the aftermath, I think there's been a lot of reactionary stuff as well. I actually felt that this was a better performance than the one they had a month ago. I felt the one a month ago was just awful. There was nothing to write home about it. and I don't feel Fulham even had a five-minute spell in that game where they were on top and they didn't have a shot on target. I think, at least in this one, they had a couple of shots on target. Not that they were that threatening. I think if the Rodrigo Munoz chance goes in early on, then it's a different story. and I felt like Crystal Palace...
00:14:26
Speaker
if you can get the first goal against them, then it asks another question of them. You don't know how they're going to react to that because they haven't been in that position recently. But goals change games, don't they? It's a silly thing to say, but it's it's never been truer. 2-0 down at halftime, I felt the only way Fulham were realistically going to get back in the game is if Adam Warton got sent off and maybe got away with the one in the first half. Marco Selva certainly felt so. It's not a stonewall red card, that's what I will say. It could have been given, but I felt like if that had happened the other way around, if one the Fulham players had done that, I don't think Marco Silva would have been saying it should have been a red card, would he? So you have to get on with it. And Crystal Palace just did what they needed to do. They did what was required.
00:15:04
Speaker
They stayed patient and Glasner said it in his interview after the first 20 minutes. They just had to stay in the game, make sure they didn't concede. And they did that. And from that moment on, they just give them the confidence. That Lerma strike from distance almost seemed to galvanise them.
00:15:19
Speaker
And from that point on, they didn't look back, did they? And they'll be eyeing up their first major. piece of silver wind and and you wouldn't bet against them would you there was a lot of reactionary stuff after the game and I've seen a lot of criticism for certain personnel look I think he got the team right you know there's people coming out after the game saying this guy should have played why didn't Jimenez play given he played for Mexico <unk>s it's all well and good saying that after it's happened isn't it but were you were you adamant before the game that Raul Jimenez should be starting you weren't were you so he got the team selection right it just wasn't meant to be I think the disappointment was that he may be
00:15:52
Speaker
Marco Silva didn't switch it up and change things from what happened in the 2-0 game a month ago and it was kind of a similar pattern to what we saw there wasn't it a lot crosses coming into the box but they were largely untroubled and you got to give the Crystal Palace defence a lot credit at their free centre arse they headed away everything that was thrown at them and you can see why they have such a good defensive record and why they are tough have to play against um why they are tough ah tough team to beat away from home but Yeah, it was a disappointing afternoon, wasn't After a lot lot of hype and hysteria going into this one, and then you just fall crashing back down to earth after taking a bump like that. But it's not the end of the world, OK? They're not going to win ah a trophy this season, but the season isn't over. Again, again people are so up and down, aren't they? After after a win, after a loss.
00:16:39
Speaker
If you win a game, they're greatest team in the world. If you lose a game, the season's over. The season's not over. Fulham have a big game coming up in a couple of days' time. On Tuesday, in fact, against Arsenal.
00:16:50
Speaker
And what they have done well recently is they have recovered, reacted well from setbacks and they're going to need to do that again,
Post-Match Reflections and Future Focus
00:16:56
Speaker
aren't they? They are in a position in the league where they can threaten Europe, where they can cling on to the hope that they can potentially get in those ah Europa Conference League spots, Europa League places.
00:17:05
Speaker
They've got a tough run and I think the next two games against Arsenal Liverpool are going to a massive test for them, but you've got to pick yourselves up. You're going to be on the floor after a game like that. I suppose in some ways it's almost better to lose 3-0 than it would be to lose penalty shootout, but You've got to pick yourselves up as best as possible and because you've got a really important run of games now in the last month and a half towards the end of the season. There is something to play for.
00:17:29
Speaker
If there wasn't, then you'd be more concerned, wouldn't you? If if they were ah sort of in no man's land with nine games to go, you'd worry about the levels of performances. But Marco Silva's got to pick up that group of players, instill that level of belief in them that they can get positive results in the next set of games that can give them an opportunity to qualify for Europe.
00:17:50
Speaker
But all in all, the long wait for a trophy carries on. Crystal Palace, fair play to them. Ruthless, efficient, did the job, didn't they? There was no knock-on effect after not playing competitive football for three weeks, aside from the initial 20 minutes, which Glasner highlighted.
00:18:07
Speaker
Good luck to them as they travel to Wembley. And for Fulham, attention will now turn to that game. against Arsenal at the Emirates. That'll do it for today's recap of the FA Cup quarterfinal against Crystal Palace. Thank you all for tuning in.
00:18:22
Speaker
Unfortunately, wasn't the result you were all looking for, but hopefully there's positive results just around the corner. Starting with that game at the Emirates as we well and truly head into the business end of the season.
00:18:33
Speaker
Until next time, take it easy and i'll catch you all soon.
00:18:40
Speaker
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