Fulham vs. Wolverhampton

Fulham has a must-win match at Craven Cottage on Saturday vs. Wolverhampton. Kickoff is at 11am EDT on Peacock. Please note the time. England switched to standard time last weekend, so for this match it is an hour later than what you might expect. I'm thrilled to finally have a chance to watch a full match this season live. So of course, if this all goes badly it will be entirely my fault.

Fulham sits just outside the relegation zone, but it could easily be argued they've had some tough match-ups. The only loss at home so far has come to league-leaders, Arsenal, and away loses came against quality teams. So this is the kind of opponent that Fulham must defeat to get back to being comfortably mid-table. Except, last season, these were the matches that Fulham couldn't seem to win. And Fulham have continued to struggle against weaker competition. So I come into this one with zero confidence that Fulham will get all three points. Due to Fulham's struggle to score more than one goal in league matches (done only once in the 3-1 win against Brentford) this is likely to be a close match. I think this is due to the Lukic/Berge midfield duo that is just too defensively minded. There have been some positive signs - like Berge taking a decent shot last week and Iwobi having a good spell in the midfield - but I expect more frustration and lack of creativity going forward against Wolves.

Wolves come into this, like Fulham, after rotating the squad in a mid-week Cup match. Wolves fell behind by three goals early to Chelsea, but managed to come back in the second half to only lose 4-3. If you could have an encouraging loss, that was it. Fulham have a long history of ending streaks so Wolves probably look at this as a good opportunity to get their first win of the season.

Fulham does have some encouraging news with injuries. Wilson, Chukwueze, Smith Rowe, and Muniz available again, but unlikely to start. Hopefully Wilson or Chukwueze can come in on the right side since Traore had been the only option. Raul will be a game-time decision, so having Muniz available even for just part of the match could be critical.

 

@MicahMan Great preview as always!
@stlouisbrad Hang in there, hope this lunacy ends soon (w/politicians that shouldn’t be too much to ask, but…).

Heading out to Vegas before the start (little over 3 hour drive) of the match, anyway to get the 3 points is fine by me.

 

I was very surprised when I saw the lineup. I thought Cuenca deserved the start over Bassey, but I was even more surprised to see Iwobi in the middle and Kevin on the wing. I've been dying to see how Fulham would perform with that pairing and while they didn't set the world on fire, I think it was an improvement over recent performances - even when it was still 11 v 11.

Efan Ekoku is my least favorite commentator of the Premier League regulars (Ray Hudson is the worst, but thankfully he doesn't cover the PL) and I was left wondering what football match he was watching. He seemed to look for every excuse to not get behind that clear red card - first supposed offside, then the "obvious" handball. Thankfully VAR got it right, no offside, and the ball came off King's shoulder. Then he wanted a handball penalty for Tete that didn't happen. Ekoku couldn't figure out why Tete was moving his hand toward the ball - it is because he's trying to bring his hands against his body so he DOESN'T get called for a hand ball! Thankfully his opinions are irrelevant and merely irritating, but it did have me worried that VAR was going to do-in Fulham again.

King had another fantastic performance - I hope we can get to the point where he isn't pulled off mid-way through the second half because it often feels like Fulham loses something when that happens. Sessegnon had another one of his signature composed finishes, but this was the first week where I was a bit bothered by some of his play - he just seemed to run into dead ends and give the ball away too much. However, I won't complain much since he got a goal and an assist on the own goal. (And Ekoku said it wasn't a very good cross, please STFU). I've never been more disappointed to see a Fulham goal as that third one. Wilson and Sessegnon finally got their second goals of the season to equal OG's total, but with that last goal, OG is top scorer again for Fulham!

I've been really pleased with how Berge is looking for opportunities going forward - his deflected shot led to Wilson's goal and he had a couple of good passes that unlocked the Wolves defense. It was also great to see Wilson, Chukwueze, and Muniz all make appearances after injury. Fulham had a lot of advantages in this match, so it is hard to say if this is truly a turning point, but after ending a string of four losses it is hard not to feel pretty good about that win.