Beesotted’s Pre-Match Guide: Fulham

Beesotted contributor, Ian Westbrook, looks ahead to Tuesday night’s eagerly-awaited west London derby clash with Fulham in the Capital One Cup.

HOW ARE THEY DOING?

In a word – disastrously.

Four games in their first second tier campaign for 14 seasons have resulted in four defeats, including Saturday’s 5-1 hammering at Derby.

They opened the season with a 2-1 loss at Ipswich and followed that with 1-0 home defeats against both Millwall and Wolves.

The Cottagers also failed to win any of their final four games last season and their last victory was a 1-0 defeat of Norwich on April 12, which came after a 2-1 triumph at Aston Villa the previous week.

Fulham finished 19th in the Premier League last season – four points adrift of safety – to end a 13-year stay in the top flight. They finished in the bottom half in nine of those seasons but also finished in the top nine in three of the four campaigns between 2008/2009 and 2011/12, while they reached the Europa League final in 2010.

WHO’S THE GAFFER?

Felix Magath took charge at Craven Cottage in February, becoming Fulham’s third manager of the season after Rene Meulensteen and before him Martin Jol.

It was a first job in England for the 61-year-old, who has a good managerial record in Germany.

He has three Bundesliga titles on his CV having led Bayern Munich to the German double of championship and cup in 2005 and 2006 and then won the league with Wolfsburg in 2009.

Magath also won three titles as a player with Hamburg between 1978 and 1983 – the first of which when he was in the same side as Kevin Keegan.

He was also capped 43 times by Germany in a nine-year international career in which he played in the 1982 and 1986 World Cup finals and 1980 European Championships.

THEIR LAST VISIT

Tonight is Fulham’s first visit to Griffin Park since a Division Two (now League One game on Easter Saturday 1998.

The Bees were battling ultimately unsuccessfully against relegation while Fulham were trying to cement a place in the play-offs, which they eventually secured.

It was also a big day for Brentford manager Micky Adams, who was welcoming the side he had managed during the previous season, and one he had also played for, to Griffin Park.

A season’s best attendance of 10,510 turned up but it was not Brentford’s day.

Striker Robert Taylor was forced off by an early injury and the visitors secured a comfortable 2-0 win thanks to a goal in each half by Paul Moody.

The result dropped the Bees into the relegation zone, from which we failed to escape.

Fulham meanwhile at the end of the season took on Grimsby in the play-off semi-finals but failed to reach Wembley after losing 2-1 on aggregate.

Brentford: Dearden, Hogg (Canham 46) Watson, Cullip, Bates, Hutchings, Rapley, Cockerill (Bryan 46), Aspinall, Scott, Taylor (McGhee 14).

Att: 10,510.

MEMORABLE MATCH

APRIL 26, 1992 – BRENTFORD 4-0 FULHAM

Only one possible match could fit the category as the most memorable between the sides – and that is Brentford’s 4-0 Sunday morning win in 1992 which left us within touching distance of promotion to the second tier of the Football League.

The scenario was this – as the weekend started the Bees, who had won four games in a row, were the slight outsiders for automatic promotion with Birmingham top on 78 points from 43 games and Stoke second on 77 from 44 – one point ahead of Brentford, who also only had two games remaining.

Although the Blues beat Shrewsbury 1-0 in their final home game, Stoke remarkably lost 1-0 at home to lowly Chester – meaning that a win for the Bees over Fulham would put us in the driving seat for the final weekend of the season.

Another season’s best crowd of 12,071 packed into Griffin Park and witnessed a quite amazing first half in which Brentford scored four times without reply.

Dean Holdsworth opened the scoring with his 38th  goal of the season when he headed in Marcus Gayle’s left-wing cross at the near post and within a minute Gayle had doubled the lead when he fired in Neil Smillie’s right-wing centre at the far post.

Smillie’s wing wizardry set up the third for Gary Blissett before Simon Ratcliffe, right on the goal-line, made it four from a Gayle free-kick on the stroke of half-time [pictured below].

Brentford: Benstead, Statham, Hughton, Millen, Evans, Ratcliffe, Gayle, Kruszynski, Holdsworth, Blissett, Smillie.

Att: 12,071.

BEES CONNECTIONS

Marcello Trotta, who has spent spells on loan here in each of the previous two seasons, is still on Fulham’s books but has not been included in a first-team squad yet this campaign.

The Italy Under-21 international striker, known nationwide for “that” penalty, scored nine goals for us in his first campaign and 13 last season as he helped us to win promotion.

He has started this season as a member of Fulham’s Under-21 squad and last Monday played in their first Premier League U21 match of the new season at Southampton, which they drew 1-1 with Marcello creating his side’s goal.

As the game at Griffin Park is Fulham’s first in this season’s Capital One Cup, we don’t know whether they will stick largely to their first team or bring in some Under-21 players, which could give Marcello the chance of another appearance on the hallowed GP turf.

DANGER MEN

At a reported £11m, Scotland international striker Ross McCormack could prove to be one of the signings of the summer once he gets settled into his new club.

McCormack was at Leeds for four years and scored 58 goals in all competitions – half of which came last season, making him top scorer in the Championship.

McCormack has been involved in all four of Fulham’s games this season, one as a substitute, which is four more than record signing Kostas Mitroglou [pictured above] who, according to reports, may never play for the club again.

The Greece international was the Cottagers’ record signing when he arrived in January but has only played a handful of matches and is still to find the net.

More or less the only first-team regular to still be at the club and to have kept his place so far this season is new club captain Scott Parker.

The England international midfielder joined the club in August 2013 and has played every minute of every match so far this campaign.

DID YOU KNOW?

Father and son Bill Dodgin senior and junior each had spells as manager at both Fulham and Brentford.

Bill senior was in charge at Craven Cottage from 1949 to 1953 before moving to Brentford until 1957.