Tuesday, April 6, 2010

How Does West Ham Compare To Fulham This Season?

West Ham as a football club have officially lodged a complaint to the Premier League over Fulham fielding a weakened team against Hull City on March 27, 2010. Fulham lost that game at the Kingston Stadium 2-0 to Iain Dowie's Hull which put them level on points with the Hammers.

The question I want to ask is how does the West Ham squad compare with the Fulham squad as a whole? This is my assessment of West Ham against Fulham's squad this season.

Goalkeeping:
Rob Green (WHU) is an England international and quite possibly England's no. 1 in the World Cup.

Mark Schwarzer (FUL) is Australia's no. 1 and will also be in the World Cup this summer.
Not much difference between the two in terms of goalkeeping strengths.

Defence:
James Tomkins, Matt Upson, Danny Gabbidon, Jon Spector, Julien Faubert, Ilunga, Daprela (WHU) - All internationals. However, Spector and Faubert are suspect defensively and the fullback area is the weakest part of West Ham's squad. The right fullback position sorely need reinforcements. Gabbidon looks past his best, and strangely, Upson does as well.

Chris Smalling, Hangeland, Konchesky, Aaron Hughes, Shorey, Baird, Pantsil (FUL) - Smalling is the best young defender in England without a doubt. Fulham's defenders have the edge as they have the defensive toughness and the experience of top-flight Premiership football.

Midfield:
Diamanti, Parker, Noble, Behrami, Kovac, Dyer, Stanislas, Collison (WHU) - a great midfield on paper, lots of pace, strength, creativity and tackling bite, sadly this group have underperformed this season.

Duff, Murphy, Gera, Dempsey, Simon Davies, Etuhu, Greening, Bjorn Riise (FUL) - apart from Murphy and Dempsey, the rest of the midfielders are journeyman players at best and yet they have been punching above their weight in the league and in Europe.

Attack:
Cole, Franco, Mido, Ilan, Hines, McCarthy (WHU) - the lack of depth and striking quality have meant that that when Cole was injured, there was no other experienced striker in the West Ham squad, The additions of Mido and McCarthy have not worked. However, Cole, Franco, Hines and Ilan can still be a fearsome quartet if West Ham stay up this season.

Zamora, Nevland, Andrew Johnson, Stefano Okaka (FUL) - again a strikefore which should not be feared. Johnson is no longer the player he was at Everton. Nevland is another journey squad player. Fulham's reliance on the excellent Zamora is at the same feverish level as Rooney's importance to Manchester United.

So you see, Fulham's squad is not as talented nor as international-laden as West Ham's. This further emphasizes just how frustrating and disappointing this season has been for the Hammers. The much travelled Roy Hodgson have performed wonders at Craven Cottage, bringing out the best in a Fulham squad which is not as talented as West Ham's.

Hmmm, I wonder what West Ham could have achieved with Hodgson at the helm.


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

what an awful article.

Anonymous said...

West Ham have a squad of over-rated injury prone weak players. Fulhams is much better.

Anonymous said...

You have a right to your opinion.

One of the issues I have with your breakdowns is Hogdson uses his players often in different positions. Chris Baird at times is at right back, and at other times he might be in midfield. Simon Davies as well has been at right back and the most of the time has been in midfield.

Second, you don't even list Zoltan Gera as a striker which he has been for awhile right behind Zamora. Also, I have a feeling you have not watched Bobby Zamora this year. He has taken his game to the next level.

Fulham are more about the team than the individual players. Fulham are about how the players function together.

West Ham in your opinion has more talent. I don't know if they are. I think it takes more than just pure talent to win. It takes a team to play together as a unit. Fulham happen to do this very well.

Anonymous said...

What a bad article. Poorly written, grammatical mistakes, little analysis and a bizzare conclusion given the results of the last two seasons. Why are you even writing football articles? Find something you are better at and do that instead.

fulham fan knows abit about west ham too said...

sorry this article is formed not by watching live games from this season.

its written on past reputation and seems to be based onwatching 3-5 minute highlights on bbc and goals on sky sports news.

the only thing you got correct was "Roy Hodgson have performed wonders at Craven Cottage"

Anonymous said...

Ha ha ha!!! Did you do this for a school report in the East End???

Or are you Sullivan's son??

TheFlatBackFour said...

@Anonymous:10.53
You are right, Zamora has been fantastic this season for Fulham. Man for man, West Ham have better talent and like you also rightly pointed out, Fulham collectively has been very impressive and it is all down to Hodgson who has moulded the team, organized them well and prepared them better for games.
But in terms of talent, West Ham is far better. Three England internationals playing for West Ham proves the point.

TheFlatBackFour said...

@Fulham fan:1.00
On contrary I have seen Fulham play this season. I saw them beat Liverpool and I saw them beat Manchester United. Both times I was very impressed. My article highlights that Fulham although less talented are proving that playing as a team and with a game plan gets results.
My gripe is that even though West Ham have players with more talent, they are sadly not performing as they should be.

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