Fulham 2019-20 Mid-Season Outlook

The first half of Fulham’s 2019-20 season has been the best first half since the 2000-2001 season when Fulham dominated the second tier on its way to a first place finish and automatic promotion. So despite Fulham’s current position outside of the top two feeling a little disappointing, it shouldn’t be forgotten that this has generally been a very good start.

Fulham has six more points at the halfway mark than in 2017-18 when Fulham went on a 23 game streak without a loss in the second half of the season to just miss out on automatic promotion by finally losing in the last game of the season. Fulham has two more points than the 2016-17 season when Fulham took the last playoff spot, five points in front of seventh place Leeds.

Based on that recent history Fulham at least has a good shot at making the playoffs for the third consecutive year in the Championship. You may remember from my posts in the 2017-18 season that typically 75 points is enough to get into the playoffs. Fulham is currently at 38 points, 37 points shy of that mark. That means to get into the playoffs Fulham needs to pretty much keep the same form as the first half of the season (11 wins, 5 draws, 7 losses).

Getting automatic promotion will require better form in the second half of the season. Typically a team that reaches 88 points will secure automatic promotion (although not always, see Fulham 2017-18). Fulham currently needs 50 points in the second half of the season to reach that mark. Fulham needs to increase their current 1.65 Points Per Match to 2.17 PPM for the remainder of the season. That would require something like a 15 win, 5 draw, and 3 loss record over the remaining 23 matches.

It certainly isn’t impossible to get 50 points over the remainder of the season. Fulham earned 56 points in the second half of the 2017-18 season and West Brom achieved 50 points in the first half of this season. However, reaching that level of quality will require some immediate changes.

In 2017-18 it was the introduction of Alexander Mitrovic and replacing David Button with Marcus Bettinelli that seemed to get Fulham to turn things around. I think Fulham’s best shot at major changes is on the back line and in the defensive portion of midfield. There is no depth for Fulham defensively, so they’ll need to look to the arrival of CB Michael Hector from Chelsea and other opportunities in the transfer window to bring in new players. Most importantly Fulham needs a proper right back to pair with Joe Bryan on the left. Steven Sessegnon showed potential but also made youthful mistakes before losing time to injury. Odoi and Christie should only substitute at that position. If Sessegnon isn’t ready then someone needs to be added to the roster.

Fulham is just missing a few pieces to make a run for automatic promotion. With some changes there is no reason why Fulham can solidify their playoff position and possibly earn an immediate return to the Premier League after 23 more matches.

 

@MicahMan, great reading as always, needs to be on the front page.