Just caught the opening in time I'll put whatever info in as I can cause already the pop-ups have caused me to miss the line-up for Bremen.
5 min. Juno gets a try 7 mins. Hunt wins a corner...and a second corner its a war in Fulhams box 8 min. 3rd corner....Akpala! No 4th corner... Proedl header! No Bremen comes out STRONG!
11 mins Fulham corner...good defese 12 min. Selassie good hip block at midfield...ball stolen 13 mins. Announcer laughs at Bremens ticky-tacky style Free kick Bremen from 35 meters...floated into the box...no. 15 mins. Elia header down at goal right in front! Damn just wide! Fulham on thier heels!
20 mins. There's a stopage for players to re-hydrate its 25 Celsius Shot of Astro on the bench and listed as unfit but dressed. 25 mins. A war of attrition in midfield no as Fulham have settled into a rythmn Eksfaktor playing physical and winning tackles Bode sighting! And interview.
30 mins. Fulham corner...no. Good defense everyone in good positions 35 mins. End to end action, good tackles, good passes! No goals
35 mins Elia trips then pushes #9 at midfield and recieves Gelb Eksfaktor takes a longshot! No good try! 1 meter wide Makiadi recieves a poor tackle and stumbles oddly...he's okay Bremen corner....No.
40 mins. Fritz bulls his way into the box and tries to push it in from the right side of goal...oh just wide! Corner is poor 1st Corner cleared for a 2nd...No poor cross. 42 mins. Fulham corner...no, well defended.
44 mins. Freekick I can't see who's taking it...hey won a corner Corner....nothing. 45 mins A 10th corner! Cleared out. 45 mins. Elia tackle at midfield...he holds his head expecting a card...lucky! 46 mins..Halbzeit...0-0 GOOD HALF!!
So far I think Elia and Ekici have been the stars of this match but I have to say the defense looks sharp and the transition game or counter is looking polished. Sorry folks I woke up 2 minutes before the match started and wrestled with pop-ups for 8 minutes which caused me to miss Werder's line-up. The action started right away and I wasn't able to determine the line-up. I'll try and sort it out between making coffee and typing. Holy Crap the roving reportier is interviewing fans in the stands! Awesome!!! Eichin is handling questions well but he wants to see more pressure from his side. This is GREAT!!! I LOVE THIS!!! My bad obviously Akpala is not playing it must have been Selassie came forward on the opening minute with a shot at goal.
Restart 48 mins. Fulham riskily passing around thier own box. 50 mins. Bremen giving Fulham room down the flanks a bit sloppy closing down. 51 mins. Elia shot from the left just outside the box but his left foot misses high. 53 mins. Now play switches down the right side but Fritz's old legs fail to catch a long pass. Steklenberg gets a defese backpass and mis-handles...Peterson gets close, steals! And...GOAL! Peterson cooly slots it in 1-0. 55 mins. Hunt takes a pass in the box...hard shot bounces off Steklinberg to Elia...Ooooh its wide! Great play.
63 mins. Hunt gets dumped just outside the Fulham box...freekick...No. Hunt with a cannon...Ooooh just over the bar! 64 mins. End to end play now Fulham with a shot just wide 65 mins. Fulham sub in I missed the names. 66 mins. Two runs forward by Eksfaktor nice switch-up there got close to a clear shot on goal. 68 mins. Subs warm up.
70 mins. Full subs right acroos the board...Kroos, Astro, is that Wurtz?, Yildrim, Pedrag, Pavlovic, Luki...hmmm, where's Fullkrug? There he is! And I see Iggy on the right middle. 74 mins. Bremen passing aroung crisply. 76 mins. and Mielitz charges out to to clear a dangerous pass...nice round of applause from the spectators. 80 mins. and Bremen are handling whatever Fulham throws at them. Astro left foot! Ooohh just over!
84 mins. Iggy needs to calm down and stop b***h-slapping Englishmen...free-kick Fulham...Meilitz...Safe! Astro wins a corner...no. 87 mins Bremen making cute ineffective passes now...weak 90 mins Astro all alone splits two Def. and a hard shot ...misses! As usual. 91 mins. Full time...1-0 Bremen. Good good strong play all over the park, oh...and Astro rocked the last 20 mins. all by himself as Bremen concentrated on keeping the scoreline. I need a break now my fingers hurt Hunt, Ekfaktor and Ekici were the stars here and a second nod to the teamwork of the back four (good concentration the entire match). Very happy with that effort! A+ to A- rating in all game aspects for this one.
IMHO it is hard to draw any conlusions from this match. Fulham was not well prepared for this match (came to Bremen this morning, not so far in their season preparation). The score is good for our players self-confidence, but next week in Saarbrücken we will face another challenge. But now it is time for the fans at the "day of the fans" to bring their children home and start drinking some victory beer.
I only saw the last 30 minutes but Arnautovic was incredible after he came in. I lost count of how many chances he had, mostly created by himself ... 4 maybe? But he never looks happy. His physique reminds me of a slimmed down body builder.
Definitely some positives to take away from today - but again, its just a test match. I think we will become sharper in front of goal over the next several weeks. Still - we could do with a new attacking signing.
I particularily enjoyed the offensive participation across the squad for the first 70 minutes. Proedl, Fritz, Ekici, Elia, Gebre, Juno all taking thier chances. I think even Luca Brasi tried to push the knife in once
Decent match actually, quite an improvement in all areas compared to many other pre-season matches. Dutt supposedly worked hard on defending as a team in the last few weeks and today you could see some genuine improvements in this area, especially compared to the Schaaf days. We still lack the final killer ball too often, but going forward looked pretty slick, too. I just hope that we don't ******** up the Pokal in traditional Werder fashion this year. Without European football, we really could do with the extra money.
It's interesting to read Fulham forums outside of BS to see how inept and punchless they think their team is. Satisfaction is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.
They provided almost nothing up front. I think think this was based on the fact their season preparation started one or two weeks later than Werder. Thus I can understand their fear, but would not overreact if I were in their place. About us the cup at the weekend will show where the team stands.
They won 3 games against Costa Rica first division teams and looked fairly encouraging on the attack. Against Bremen, which has not been very impressive prior to Sunday, they were kind of toothless, ergo panic has set in for the West London boys.
One error I noticed watching this highlight, Pedrag Stevanovic did not sub in, it was brother Alex being that Pedrag is injured until October: