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Comments
Maybe just maybe we will fumble our way to safety.
"The negativity bias is a cognitive bias that results in adverse events having a more significant impact on our psychological state than positive events. Negativity bias occurs even when adverse events and positive events are of the same magnitude, meaning we feel negative events more intensely... < and it > causes our emotional response to negative events to feel amplified compared to similar positive events. Negativity bias is linked to loss aversion, a cognitive bias that describes why the pain of losing is psychologically twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining"
Or to put it another way, the British love to moan.
I'm not sure I've seen us have so little possession against a side and have had so few genuine goal threats against us. Fair play to Fabianski (Areola wouldn't have lost the shirt after his spell starting if it were down to me, and I think Fab had a poor second half against Newcastle as well), he dealt with the only genuine chance they created superbly, just getting a hand to the ball as Pereira tried to go round him, but, that apart, for all their possession Fulham offered little threat without Mitrovic.
I suspect their expected goals (xG) of only 0.68 is the lowest for some time for a team having 77% possession. Given that, outside of the bottom 9 clubs, they have the most matches (5) against the bottom clubs, there could be some bonus points to be picked up by our relegation rivals in the coming matches, although Mitrovic could be back against Soton and Palace if the FA don't succeed in getting his ban increased; Fulham didn't threaten to score like a team in the top half should, and I think they could struggle until Mitrovic is back.
Moyes mixed things up by playing both Ings and Antonio, although it would be hard to call it a 4-4-2 given Ing's average position was further back than everyone except Zouma and Ogbonna. Disappointing for him that he couldn't take the one genuine chance that came his way, failing to lift the ball over the advancing Leno, the ball hitting the keeper's shoulder, when he was slipped in by Bowen (I think).
I felt we had a better shape after the initial substitutions (Downes for Ings, Benrahma for Fornals) and that we offered more offensively, although the stats suggest we didn't have significantly more possession. We did create 2 good opportunities in the later stages though, with Bowen maybe having more time than he realised, time for a touch, when he shot first time from the edge of the box and Cornet missing a glorious chance when one-on-one with Leno that he really should have done better with.
I know many of us feel that Soucek is lucky to have kept his place, and I suspect he might finally have been dropped yesterday given the change in formation had Paqueta been available, but I must say I wasn't overly impressed with Fornals. His form dropped off a good while back, and he admitted part of it was having to deal with a new baby, but, apart from one drive forward that he did well with I didn't think he had a great game. There seemed to be a lot of misplaced passes (although the whole team was guilty of that tbh) although maybe give him the benefit of the doubt a little I guess as he's not played much football recently. Unfortunately he's not the player he promised to be atm after a bright start to his career with us though.
Finally, I'm not sure I see the logic in bringing Cresswell back in, I don't feel as though Emerson has done any worse than the many sub-par performances that finally led to Cresswell losing the shirt, and I'll be disappointed if Cresswell is our starting LB in the remaining PL matches.
I guess it's the VAR gods trying to even things out.
Sometimes on here it’s like a bunch of old moaning geezers down the pub and if I think they’re wrong I’ll say so.