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Fulham, effectively known as Real Madrid B on the Managing Madrid Podcast, played out another disappointing result, this time against Crystal Palace in a 2-3 loss at home.
It’s semi bittersweet for Real Madrid fans watching: Fulham haven’t picked up a single point through three Premier League games, but on an individual level, Gonzalo Garcia and Cesar Palacios have been very good. The latter point is what Madridista should be most concerned about given that expectations for Fulham in general are low, and we’re more interested in how the Castilla stars develop playing in the Premier League; and, to be fair, they are on a less talented team to most of their opponents while also being very impressive in a new league at such a young age.
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Still, Crystal Palace at home is at the very least a drawable game, but Fulham’s defense looks terrible, and from an overall talent and firepower standpoint, they’re limited.
Yet, they are bizarrely fun to watch for a variety of reasons:
Gonzalo Garcia is omni present all over the field, almost as a false 9
The Premier League is generally very fast paced and back-and-forth
Obvious things that are interesting for us: Alvaro Arbeloa, Cesar Palacios, and soon, Manuel Angel, who has yet to be integrated into the rotation.
Gonzalo Garcia
Gonzalo, as mentioned, roams everywhere. You’ll see him make several runs in behind the defensive line (and today, a couple of those great runs were looked off), but you’ll also see him drop deep doing defensive work. He’ll hover to the right wing or help the team escape pressure in his own half the way Karim Benzema used to do.
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Gonzalo, somewhat unlucky, was on the end of Tyrick Mitchell’s equalizer in the second half, where he worked hard to clear the ball, but suffered from unlucky bounces:
Gonzalo had 42 touches — more than Bobb and Palacios who were deeper on paper — which shows he is far from a traditional striker. He was at the heart of almost every meaningful Fulham attack — either on the ball or creating space with the right off ball run — and had five shots. Though none of his shots hit the mark, they did provide for a good target; but my one criticism from this game was that two of hits shots were forced from areas where a pass would’ve provided a better attacking opportunity. None of his five shots were on target.
Gonzalo’s run down the middle was also what opened up space for Palacio’s goal (embedded in the next section). He also won three aerial duels — one of them a tremendous leap to meet a corner with his head.
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Cesar Palacios
Palacios was deployed in the left half space and most of his touches came around the half way line, though he did make runs occasionally in the box, and was always hovering to pounce on a rebound.
He anticipated his run on his goal perfectly:
Palacios, like Gonzalo, had five shots, and they both also finished with a key pass to their name.
Elsewhere, Franco Mastantuono was taken off at half-time vs Torino. I’m not entirely sure what the context was there as them game overlapped with Fulham, but here is his highlight package from the game:
