Fulham v Burnley

Burnley got worked at home v Watford and are in Greece for an Europa match today. Hopeful that the back 4 are getting healthier. In Slav I trust.

 

Burnley has scored just one goal in the Premier League - the same as Fulham. Their point came from a 0-0 draw with Southampton in a match where Burnley was lucky to have come away with anything. Then today they had a frustrating 3-1 loss to Olympiakos today. A discouraging start to their season so far. Fulham has the talent and opportunity to get their first points of the season. A number of times Burnley's back four has been caught ball-watching so hopefully Fulham's passing will mesmerize them and give chances for our guys to score some goals.

And as a reminder, this match was pushed to Sunday with a start time of 11am EDT (an hour later than typical Saturday matches). The match will be available on NBC Gold.

 

Ream, Mawson, and Ayite are still out but Odoi is available after his 2-game suspension. Mawson could make an appearance soon in the Carabao Cup match vs. Exeter City on Tuesday.

http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2018/august/23/team-news

 

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/45237327

TEAM NEWS
Summer signing Alfie Mawson remains unavailable for Fulham as he continues to improve his fitness following knee surgery in May.

Floyd Ayite and Tim Ream are also out but Denis Odoi returns after a ban.

Burnley are expected to make several changes to the side which lost in the Europa League in Greece on Thursday.

Aaron Lennon, Ashley Westwood, Matt Lowton, James Tarkowski and Joe Hart could all return after being rested for that match.

MOTD COMMENTATOR'S NOTES
@johnrodercomm: This is a match of vital importance to both teams as they look for their first league win of the new season. It's two defeats out of two for Fulham's expensively-assembled squad, while this Sunday is Burnley's eighth competitive fixture.

The debate over whether competing in the Europa League is good or bad for Burnley has continued, but surely there's no point whatsoever in striving for seventh place last season only to throw away the chance of a place in the group stage.

If Burnley need inspiration for Thursday's second leg, just ask any Fulham fan how much they treasure memories of reaching the Europa League final in 2010.

VIEW FROM THE DUGOUT
Fulham head coach Slavisa Jokanovic on negotiations to extend his contract: "This job is in the hands of my agent and the club. I am really not talking all the days with the club about money or this kind of situation.

"I am focused only about the Premier League and I am fully motivated to do everything to be successful with my team and club."

LAWRO'S PREDICTION
Fulham are an open, engaging team but, having scored just once in their opening two games, I am not sure they have that cutting edge up front.

Prediction: 1-1

 

Betts deserves his chance. He earned it. I want Christie and Schurrle on the right. McDonald back in for Anguissa.

 

For Jokanovic this is a huge amount of turnover for just one week with 5 changes to the starting XI. @daddude7 did you have a discussion with Slavisa? Because you got most of what you wanted.

Bettinelli (whoot! whoot! Don't let me down kid!)
Fosu-Mensah, Odoi, Le Marchand, Bryan
McDonald, Cairney, Seri,
Vietto, Mitrovic, Schurrle

Subs: Fabri, Christie, Chambers, Anguissa, Johansen, Sessegnon, Kamara

 

And they are on the board!

 

Good win. Mitro looks like a man among boys at times. While not the same player per se, he reminds me of Bobby Z, just too big and too strong for many cb’s. Great strike by Seri and Schurrle was as cool as they come with the insurance goal. Defending still feels a bit unsettled but it’ll come once Joka has everyone and settles on a unit.

 

And today Schurrle joins the party. This is getting better every week, and they're still just introducing themselves.

 

Highlights:


My MOTM was Schurrle. He wasn't perfect, but he seemed determined to see Fulham through to a win today. He was running up and down the pitch causing trouble for the full 89 minutes he was on the field. I'm glad that he was able to get his goal after taking as many shots as all 11 of Burnley's players combined. Seri played well once again and that shot was a great way to start. Mitrovic also showed his value again - and again.

It was also great to see Fulham put together a beautiful set-piece play on Mitrovic's first goal. We haven't seen a lot of that from Fulham and it would be nice if we could add that as an additional threat.

The second goal from Burnley should have been called back since Tarkowski was offside, so credit to the team for only allowing one legitimate goal. I was nervous at times when Burnley put on a high press, but generally Fulham handled it well - with the obvious exception of Le Marchand's turnover leading to the first goal. Fulham did give Burnley a few other good looks, but fortunately we don't have to play squads with the skill of Tottenham every week.

It is also a testament to the work done over the summer that we could switch out 5 starters from last week's respectable lineup and still have a very strong lineup this week. We haven't had that kind of depth in a while.

 

Fulham was the only PL team to earn an "A" from SkySports for their performance this week:

http://www.skysports.com/football/n...helsea-win-again-while-fulham-click-into-gear

 

What an enjoyable match to watch - aside from the nerviness of the second half up until Schurrle scored. I was particularly pleased to see the possession turned into goals. I get quite frustrated when Fulham dominate possession but come away with nothing.

The front three were outstanding all match. It's a shame that two of them are on loan. Betts was sufficient. He played the high balls well and connected on most of his passes. It was unfortunate that the defense couldn't get the job done to help him on the goals conceded.

Here's hoping that Cairney's ankle heals up quickly.

On to Exeter City!

 

Has anyone signed up for the NBC Sports Gold - Premier League package? If so, how is it working?

My understanding is the match was streamed via this package.

Thanks,

Sully

 

Yep. Has worked perfectly for me through my Apple TV.

 

I've had it since the beginning of the season and it has worked well. I put my computer display on the TV and run it through my browser. It has occasional drops, but generally the streaming is very good - one of the better streams for live sporting events that I've seen.

If a match isn't live on broadcast TV then you can see it live on Gold. This past weekend that was a total of four matches. A couple hours after the live coverage the match is available on replay. If you have a cable package you can watch other matches that were broadcast, but if you don't have cable then you can only watch replays that were shown live on Gold.

It also includes access to review, preview, and daily EPL shows. I feel that it has been worth the $50.

 

Thanks gents, good to know. I was going to sign up this weekend but had a conflict and could not watch the match anyway. Good to know its working as advertised.

 

I agree with MicahMan, I've really enjoyed the Gold service, and it was great for the Burnley game.

The only problem was that I couldn't get it to work on Firefox, my first choice browser. Once I found out that it works fine on Opera, I was all set. I assume the problem with Firefox is that I have too much privacy protection. There are a number of sites that don't work for me unless I turn some of it off, and that appears to have been the case here.

 

I have also had trouble running it occasionally on Firefox - particularly right at the beginning of a match. If I watch something recorded or come in later it doesn't seem to have the issue. If I get the error I just use Chrome.

And here I thought I was the only one who had Firefox as my first choice browser!