Fulham vs. Manchester United

Fulham host Manchester United on Sunday at 11:30am EST with coverage on USA Network. It will be the last match in the Premier League before the World Cup break.

Both teams come into this match a bit hobbled. Fulham will have the daunting task of facing a top six team without Mitrovic (injury), Reed (suspension), Tete (suspension), or Kebano (injury). United will be without Dalot and Varane while Ronaldo, Sancho, and Antony are questionable.

Manchester United have not gotten a win on the road against a team in the top half of the table (which Fulham is!) suffering defeats at Manchester City, Brentford, and Aston Villa while getting a point at Chelsea. They didn't look great at Villa Park last weekend, falling behind 2-0 in the first 11 minutes. I'd like to see Fulham do something similar at the Cottage. Push United hard in the opening phases in the match, like they did with Liverpool to open the season, and good things could happen.

Despite missing a number of key players, I think Fulham will be competitive in this one and get a draw. Regardless of what happens, Fulham will still be a team in the top half of the table going into the break and I never imagined that would be the case back at the beginning of August.

 

Ugh on players missing, the fact it’s not Mitro’s foot and not his ankle is especially worrisome

 

I wouldn’t be as concerned about missing Mitro if we had a backup who was at least a threat to score, but…. We’ve won matches where other guys scored when Mitro didn’t, so there’s that. The stat that bothers me most: we’re -1 on goal difference. That’ll catch up to us if we don’t buckle down on “D.”

 

We deserved more…a lot more…from this one. Gutted for our lads. This league is brutally cruel in the finest of the fine details. The most innocuous of mistakes, however few, often mean the difference between a point, points, or nothing. But…we’re still 9th. And I just don’t see this edition of the club not staying up. On to the World Cup.

 

Here are the highlights:

For the first time I went to a local bar that is open for Premier League matches to watch this match. My son is a United fan so we both went. Apparently, there is only really a Liverpool following that shows up at this location (maybe I'll be back on March 18!) so there were just a few general fans of the Premier League rather than a contingent of Man. U. fans. I did get to introduce the patrons to a new word: "Fulhamish"

I think a draw would have been a fair result, and three points wasn't out of the question. The highlights don't do Fulham enough justice - it really seemed like they were controlling most of the match. It was odd to watch a Premier League game where Fulham were in control and the other team was happy to sit back and wait for their chances on the counter. I think if Fulham had either Reed or Mitrovic they would have won this one. It was also telling that the winning goal came right through DeCordova-Reid who just couldn't figure out where to position himself.

It is unfortunate Fulham didn't get 2 or even four points from the last two matches, but I'll take the moral victory and 9th place in the table until at least December.

 

I had a lot of positive things to say, but blowing it at the end just left me annoyed. I don't get the Onomah substitution. Part of me feels like if he had booked it back on defense he could have broken up that last goal. He jogged back at the beginning. Frustrating finish given how well we played.

 

This was hard to take. I thought that Diop could have done better in the buildup to the second goal.
Positives: we played really well, and both Ream and Robinson are healthy and going to the World Cup in excellent form.

 

Anyone else think that Leno should have come off his line on that last goal? I am admittedly not a goalkeeper but, when I saw that through ball, I was completely expecting the keeper to go after it.

I absolutely agree that Mitro would have tormented De Gea on at least a few of the 10 Fulham corners and the outcome would have been totally different.

I hope this is only highlighting the differences between the top six and the rest of the league. They have that quality and x-factor that seems to separate them at just the right time. Fulham are in excellent shape and are competing every match so with a little luck they could easily be flipping the results.

 

I think it would have been really tight for Leno to get there first, but he might have cut down on the options Garnacho had. It was just a perfectly weighted ball from Eriksen that put Leno in a bad spot (not to mention he totally pulled Diop out of the way too). When the ball first comes into the box Leno does make a start for it, but then ends up deciding against it and back-pedals. I initially thought Leno should have stopped it before it got past him, but I think that backward movement put Leno off balance so that when the ball comes his feet aren't situated well to make a dive to the left.