Fulham travel to Nottingham Forest on Sunday. Kickoff will be at 10am on Peacock.
After two supremely disappointing showings last week, especially in the FA Cup, it will be interesting to see what kind of team shows up for Fulham on Sunday. Will there be any passion, any desire to win? Or will it be clear that the players feel like the season is done and we are just marking time until the summer? Will Silva even put out his best lineup? I have no idea anymore.
The good news is that Silva says he expects Wilson will be available again. Kevin is still out (I won't be surprised if he is done for the season) and he cryptically said two others are being monitored. Raul could be one of those since he is morning the death of his father this week and has not been in training. For me the key decisions are in the midfield. I'd like to see the best trio that Fulham have had this season: Iwobi, Smith-Rowe, and Berge. Lukic was in the squad, but didn't make an appearance against Southampton - which felt odd given the situation. Maybe Lukic is one of the ones still being monitored? Before he starts again I'd want him to come on as a sub since he wasn't doing great before his injury.
Fulham have a good recent record against Forest. In December Fulham got a narrow win thanks to a penalty converted by Raul. Forest haven't won in a couple league outings, but they were against good teams and they got a draw against Manchester City last week. On Thursday they had a tight loss against Midtjylland in the Europa League. They've got their hands full trying to continue in that campaign while now being even on points with West Ham and out of the relegation zone just on goal differential. Forest certainly will have a lot to fight for. Will Fulham feel the same?
Which side of the Fulham personality will appear this weekend? I’m jaded by this club at the moment, but there’s still time to inch up the league and not throw away another good season with a tailspin in the conclusion.
Also, are Fulham now banned from league matches on Saturday?
First off, I want to apologize for the site being unresponsive on Sunday. The servers were running as slow as Iwobi's decision making. As with Iwobi, I'm not exactly sure why either.
On to the Forest match... I thought the starting lineup was okay, especially once I realized that it was Smith-Rowe who was the mysterious person who might be out for this match. That made King's start totally understandable. I'm still surprised Diop didn't start over Anderson and Anderson didn't do anything to make me feel like he was the right decision.
Unfortunately the left side of Fulham just couldn't get coordinated. Bobb, Robinson, and King were not on the same page and kept either going for the same ball or passing it to no one. Iwobi wasn't doing any favors either by lingering too long on the ball and not taking advantage of spaces while they were open.
I was happy with the subs and thought that Muniz looked much better than his other outings after returning from injury. His hold-up play was better than Raul's today and if not for Aina's well placed noggin, he would have had a great goal. I've also got to give credit to Lukic. I've been down on him most of the season, but I thought he did well when he came out today.
Despite those positives, this game was the latest indicator that Fulham is going nowhere this season. Out of the FA Cup, lost to West Ham, drew with Forest. Those are the results of a team that will be forgetably mid-table. Fulham will have to win against much better teams now to have a shot at Europe and that isn't going to happen. We will be able to reflect back on some special wonder-goals this season, but I think that the most memorable part of this campaign is that it likely marks the end of the Silva era of Fulham.
