The Tanner Report: Fulham 1 QPR 2
It all started so well. In accordance with my ritual my two fried eggs remained perfectly intact which means a Fulham victory. I proceeded to Craven Cottage for the unveiling of the George Cohen statue. This is now my third statue event, a dinner, lunch and now the unveiling ceremony. I invited my school friend who took me to my first game. The format did not work as champagne and patisseries were served before the ceremony at 10.30am. After that we were left high and wet for the two hours or so before the kick off. We were not alone in finding the resemblance to George Cohen distant. The statue was a set above a high plinth with the names of the donors but unlike Johnny Haynes no vantage point of distance. George’s face is more affable than the statute representation and the pose of puffed out chest was more Bobby Moore. I hope I am not being churlish as not every club can boast both a World Cup winner and one club man so it’s only right that he is honoured and can see that honour in his lifetime. This I know means a great deal to George’s close Fulham friend Bob Howes who was the initial staple force behind the project.
As for the game, I cannot recall Fulham creating more chances, including two missed penalties, and not winning. After pleasing midfielder interplay chance after chance was created and duly missed. Whoever is in change of recruitment – the analytic guru in Florida or coach Stefan Jokatonic – the end project is that we have lost two scorers, one of whom Moussa Dembele is scoring for fun for Celtic and the other Ross Macormack kept us up and made the divisional side, and not replaced them with one. Up front Chris Martin, on loan from Derby, made little impact and when presented with an open goal missed. Neither of our two strikers showed any enthusiasm to take a penalty which most forwards like to do and both were saved.
My critique of SJ does stop withe recruitment. He does not seem to know his best team, the set up of lone striker is not producing goals and now I am at odds with his game management He subbed our best player Scott Parker and then Tom Cairney who has scored 2 late goals – one last Wednesday – to garner 4 points. He is our most likely midfield scorer. His sub Neeskens Kobano’s main contribution was to engage in a long row prior to the last minute penalty.This only adds pressure on the taker Sone Oluko whose effort was saved.
After our initial hopes, we have only won one home game, our first and most difficult v Newcastle, and now lost four on the bounce (Birmingham, Bristol City twice and now our neighbours). We are in mid-table and need urgently to find a consistent winning set up so that is where we will remain … or worse.
