Fulham play their last London derby of the season when they travel across London to face Arsenal. Kickoff is at 12:30pm EDT on NBC.
Arsenal are currently top of the league and since Manchester City doesn't play until Monday, they will still have that position when they face Fulham. They had a tight mid-week draw against Atletico Madrid and stopped their two game skid with a narrow win against Newcastle last week.
Fulham looked very good against Aston Villa last week and I hope they can keep the fighting spirit that we saw at the Cottage. I mean, Berge had a shot AND was called for offside! Who had that on their bingo card?! Arsenal is tougher competition for sure, but I just want to see Fulham go out there and make a game of it and not play nervously.
Unfortunately, a number of injuries will limit Silva's options. Last week's man-of-the-match, Ryan Sessegnon, will not be available. He will join Iwobi who will still be out. Tete might be available, but don't be surprised if Castagne gets the start - especially since he was excellent last week.
Fulham has never won at Arsenal in the Premier League, and it probably won't happen Saturday, but l hope we can at least make them sweat and work for whatever they might get against Fulham.
As with the Liverpool match, Fulham were shown to be a far inferior team against Arsenal and incapable of matching the other side. It was always going to be tough playing with a number of players who wouldn't be first choice - Reed, Castagne, Chukwueze - but they weren't the ones at fault for the three goals. It was questionable decision making from Robinson and Andersen that doomed Fulham. Why did Robinson leave Raul alone with Saka on the first goal? He stayed with a five man back line that still couldn't stop the cross to Gyokeres. Then Robinson let Saka have a free run on the second. On the third Andersen helpfully played Gyokeres well onside and made it difficult for Bassey to catch up from his position further up field. Three first half goals and it was game over.
Also similar to the Liverpool match, Fulham couldn't get anything going forward until Arsenal took their foot off the gas. When Fulham plays better teams they need to be much quicker with their passes. If there is an opportunity it will probably close quickly against teams like Arsenal. Fulham's cautious approach of look right, then left, then right again may be good for safely crossing streets in London, but it kills any momentum against teams like Arsenal and Liverpool.
This performance was on par with this season's away form. Fulham has a grand total of two points earned on the road against teams in the top half of the table. Against those teams Fulham has been outscored on aggregate 20 to 5. Fulham gave up exactly three goals in five of those nine matches and came away scoreless in five of those nine too. Thankfully Fulham's only remaining away day is against Wolverhampton. I hope they can manage a better performance there.
I’m not too upset. I didn’t expect us to get anything from this game, especially when I saw Reed starting (no slight intended). The silver lining is that it makes it less likely ManCity will end up the champions this season. On the other hand, we are still within striking distance from Europe. We just need to win out, and the teams we have left are within our range.
@daddude7 yeah, I wasn't as upset as the Liverpool and Brentford games. I felt there was an effort put forth in this one, they just weren't up to Arsenal's quality. Plus it turns out Berge wasn't available because of an illness that might have impacted other players who were on the roster, so that gets them a little more sympathy from me. I've pretty much given up on aspirations of Europe, but I'm still hopeful that given the remaining competition we can see some good performances from Fulham.
I also didn’t expect anything from this match. But what upset me was a number of those decisions that led to goals. Robinson looked over his shoulder two, maybe three, times at Saka and then still just let him waltz by.
I’m a bit worried about the scoring drought. Four goals from their last eight matches, and if you take away the 3-1 victory over Burnley, that’s one single goal in seven matches. I don’t know what’s going on, but I certainly don’t like it.