Amkar’s assault and battery

By: timmyg | August 20th, 2009

A Pyrrhic victory perhaps?

After cruising to a 3-0 lead, Amkar Perm rescue a crucial late away goal to blemish an otherwise respectable 3-1 result. And then we learn AJ will be out for 8 weeks with a dislocated shoulder/collarbone.

No wonder other managers throw in the towel in this competition at a certain point?

Roy is as incensed as ever, and for good reason. There isn’t any video footage of the match or assault from Dmitri Belorukov anywhere, but from what I understand it was a body check. A 5 minute major in hockey, plus suspension. A red card in footy, suspension in tow.

But instead Amkar, and Belorukov — only receiving a yellow — get to live on another day. Jerks.

And its interesting to note that Roy prepared the lads quite well without having seen much of them prior to today, according to the Daily Mail.

Hodgson’s side did not know much about their Russian opponents, who were founded just 15 years ago and are named after an ammonia-based fertiliser. F
ulham had relied on three matches of video footage after their manager had been unable to secure a visa to travel to Russia.

One positive about today is Duff’s triumphant arrival, assisting Zamora a mere 30 seconds into the his substitution appearance. Hope to see more good things from him, as Gera’s reviews have been consistently woeful.

Not really sure how much AJ’s injury screws up our plans for Sunday. I know long term Roy will have something figured out. But if its good news for anyone its good news for Eddie Johnson. Kamara is above him in the depth chart, but has not been as active during the preseason as EJ so its a little unclear who is our #3 now. Time for EJ to step up, finally.

Oh, and the Greening saga rekindled and then ended rather abruptly, again. But this time he’ll be joining us on a season-long loan. Huzzah!

And Adrian Leijer is going back to Australia. In his two years with the club made 6 total first team appearances — on the bench. While with Norwich for the second half of last season, he made just 4 actual playing appearances. Things can only improve for the lad.