Positives and negatives: Fulham 2-2 Ipswich

Jack Stroudley looks back at another two points dropped at Craven Cottage.

There are three guarantees in life; death, taxes and Fulham dropping points at home. Fulham have drawn 2-2 at home for the second game running, this time against bottom three-sitting Ipswich Town. No disrespect to Ipswich who came and successfully pulled off their game plan but Fulham will be looking at this as two points dropped rather than one gained. Nevertheless, here are the talking points from another wet day in West London.

Positives

Si señor

There genuinely wasn’t going to be a single positive from me until Raul Jimenez converted his second penalty of the game in added time to rescue a point for Fulham. I’ve been the first to criticise our forwards and demand Fulham sign a new one, and while I think in the long-term that’s what is required, I’m okay with our options for now. Jimenez is now on eight goals going into the New Year with Rodrigo Muniz on three. If you had one striker with 11 at this stage you’d be over the moon so this weird chopping and changing seems to be working to an extent. Plus it’s nice to see a striker who can put the ball in the net from the spot *cough* Mitrovic *cough*

Negatives

Not so fab five (or four)

Jimenez’s penalty conversions are where the positives start and end for me because quite frankly I thought the performance on Sunday was abysmal. We looked to continue in the same vein of the Bournemouth game (minus the late goal) with the back five due to Berge’s absence in the first half but never really got going. For all 72% of our possession we were incredibly wasteful with aimless balls into the box (bar our one clear chance which was saved by Walton in net) and were punished thanks to Sammie Szmodics (and a big mistake from Calvin Bassey).

Marco Silva then tried to change it up bringing Emile Smith Rowe on and we seemed to be even less frightening in the attacking third, Silva then appeared to just throw every attacking player on and hope as the game progressed. If it wasn’t for two penalty kicks, this would’ve been a disaster of a day for Fulham and I think that Silva needs to take some rare criticism here.

Lonely at the bottom

For all the good we have done this season against those sides at the top, our inability to get results against those towards the foot of the table is killing us. Seven points from a possible 18 against those currently sitting in the bottom five simply isn’t good enough, for comparison we’ve picked up eleven points from a possible fifteen against those in the top five. Why are we so poor in the games we should be doing better in? Is it the low block that teams come and sit in? (bar Wolves) Are we just not good enough at creating chances? A lot of questions and not a lot of answers, Fulham need to fix it and they need to fix it quickly.

Mind the gap

Look, we’ve not exactly been left out to dry by those above us. But Fulham fans have spoken countless times about ‘how we should have more points’ and with yesterdays’ result Fulham stayed in ninth. It’s not all bad as we sit two points behind eighth and three behind seventh – but we can’t keep dropping points and walking away from the Cottage going ‘well we should’ve won that’.

Those European football nights are those who are able to find a way on a consistent basis, break these tricky teams down and grind out wins (not draws). Points mean prizes in this league and while we still have an awful long way to go, I fear if we keep dropping points at this rate our season will be over by April.