One of the sports blog had an article on a potential NBA expansion into multiple European cities creating maybe a European conference/division. How that would play with the 4 games in 5 nights scheduling the NBA likes between teams on the US west coast and Europe could be interesting.
Fulham barely scrapes out a tie v. ten man Sheffield United. Despite playing Taarabt and Bent much of the second half, it took a smokin' hot 75 min Talladega shot to save Fulham's bacon. Dunno why Demps was not in the 18.
This is the only thing I've found: Fulham boss Rene Meulensteen defends tinkering after Sheffield Utd stalemate
The article is not up yet, but Kicker is reporting that Fulham is pushing to sign Kaiserslautern's Simon Zoller. He is saying no, but Fulham is obviously looking for a forward.
Well at least Clint is learning the art of bunkering and defending on this loan. We'll be having to do a decent amount of that at the WC.
2010 Bob Bradley's team yes, however we don't do that anymore under JK - see Italy, Germany, Bosnia, Brazil etc. I know against Germany's 'A' team we'll probably have to a bit, but vs. Ghana and Portugal I don't think you'll see us play that conservative.
I don't know it depends on the results. If we beat Ghana I could easily see us play extremely conservative against Portugal especially if Portugal gets blown out by Germany in the first game.
Hmm, bunkering in 2010. I didn't see that in the World Cup. Considering we outpossessed Slovenia and Algeria, and were basically even with England and Ghana. This is a myth that needs to die. Now in the 2009 Confederations Cup yes, we can argue in 2009 we bunkered to set up the counter attack. Of course, we would never win a possession game against Spain and Brazil. Regardless, a team needs to be able to play both styles in order to succeed.
Fulham have a game tomorrow against Southampton in the Premier League. RM sent out a fully changed side from the Arsenal game last weekend and started a trio of youth players (Tankovic, David and the RB) and a fourth (Pulman) came on after Riise got hurt in the fourth minute. It was not a good performance (but also not as abject as it may seem from press reports), but it seems like no one that will start Tuesday was in the 18 yesterday (besides Steklenberg). Bent and Taarabt are not starters for Fulham and both showed why yesterday.
If you check out the actual results of the team under Bradley, it will quickly become obvious to you that we were significantly stronger offensively than defensively. That is an objective fact. Further, we had a terrible, terrible record of holding on to results, which obviously is not the mark of a team that bunkers.
I think so too. The key for this whole tournament is Ghana, we win we have a chance, we lose, we need a miracle.
Absolutely this. Everything hinges on getting a result, preferably a win in that first game. Do that, and the game against Portugal is probably one of those "sit back, absorb pressure and try to steal a counterattacking goal a la Azteca 2013".
Bob didn't bunker in the WC. If you want to see the NT bunkering, watch the Italy game after Deuce scored.
To advance an off-topic discussion, I'd offer that rather than bunkering we kept way tooooo much space between the lines under Bradley. We were constantly scrambling to recover positions after we turned the ball over and counted on way too much 1v1 defending in space. That's why MB ran 17,000,000 miles at top speed in the WC. But that's also what gave Dempsey and Donovan the ability to find the ball in some space and create danger. Live the sword, die by the sword.
Apologize for going waaaaaaay off-topic...but I noticed that Sheffield United (Fulham's opponent yesterday) is currently in League One's relegation zone. What in the hey happened to a club that just seven years ago was competing in the PL?