This will be only a review of the first half as the referee has frankly ruined the game in my opinion and I will not be tuning in to watch the second. Quite why Hangeland got the red, be it for high foot or a two-footed tackle, can only be guessed and neither of them fits at all in my opinion. The only defence I can have of the referee is the end state of Hangeland made it look like it was a higher challenge than it was. Then again, Lee Probert refused to consult his assistants who might have got a better view from a different angle. 3 minutes later, Rose made a similar tackle on Riether and no there was no consistency from the referee. Moreover, Probert refused to play advantage on a couple of situations for both teams and kept breaking up the flow of the play. Generally a crappy performance from him and the FA should take a look at a previous post I made about improving the performances of referees to make sure that the standards do not get so low again.
Back to the game, the away side first. Sunderland's passing was more composed and assured than in any of their games this season and Colback alongside Cattermole controlled the game well. Perhaps this is because of the central midfield duo of Sidwell and Karagounis not linking that well together and Ruiz misplacing a lot of his passes. A note about Sunderland's attack is that they played very narrowly and the full backs did not provide any width. With Fulham dropping deep, Sunderland could not find any space while playing so narrowly and this was best shown by Sessgnon in the 8th minute when he just blasted the ball high towards goal due to the lack of support and inability to find space. They played better after the red card though with Bardsley and Rose moving up forward more to support the attack. They provided an outlet for the Sunderland attackers to pass to and streched the Fulham defence.
Fulham as usual has been impressive in the match. Sidwell should have got the game's first goal after Berbatov's reverse pass found him in space but Sidwell fluffed the shot on his left foot. Berbatov was his usual self but Ruiz seemed a little off form today as he sold his team mates short on a few passes that could have been disastrous if Sunderland had attacked with more speed. The injury to Kacaniklic was also a terrible blow as he had been willing to take on Bardsley during the match though he did not find much joy in it. One thing i noted before the red card was that Fulham's players were slow to get back after their attacks broke down and this might have been a deliberate ploy to leave players high up the pitch in the case of Sunderland losing the ball. After the red card though, they abandoned this plan. Their three man defence for a few minutes before Senderos came on would have been perfect against the narrow attack but Jol probably felt it was better to change it as the Fulham players looked uncomfortable trying it out. This might be something Jol would like to work on during training just in case of similar scenarios next time. Tactical variety is always a good thing to have.
I won't predict a Sunderland win just yet. Fulham's players have shown that they are full of energy and they just might produce that extra burst each to nick the game. Riether and Riise will be especially important and Jol might want to monitor them carefully and plan his last substitution well.
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