Fulham vs. Southampton

Fulham will host bottom of the league Southampton on Sunday with kickoff at 9am EST on Peacock.

This one has "banana skin" written all over it. Fulham has done really well against teams in contention for European spots, but their last loss was at home against a woeful Wolverhampton team that has lost four straight matches since - and lost their manager too. Fulham also struggled against fellow relegation fodder, Ipswich. Just one point from two teams that have a collective 21 points between them.

Meanwhile Southampton, who at 5 points have one of the worst records ever in the Premier League, will come into this match looking for that new manager bounce. They almost certainly won't continue the style of play that earned them the league's worst goal differential - 9 goals worse than Wolverhampton. Southampton also showed a lot of heart in their mid-week loss against Liverpool in the Carabao Cup. They were very close to earning a shoot-out at Anfield, although it wasn't quite as strong as the Liverpool squad Fulham faced last weekend.

So despite Fulham's good form and Southampton's terrible record, I have no more confidence heading into this match than any of the prior four. Fulham will be without Pereira who serves a one-game ban for earning five yellows. There is also a good chance Tete will still be out after coming off injured against Liverpool. Anderson will probably still be out and Nelson is out for sure.

This will likely be a far different match from the last four with fewer chances for breakaways. Instead Fulham will likely have to work against a defensively oriented Southampton. Fulham should dominate this match and I think Fulham will earn their chances, but they have to finish. If Fulham are wasteful, we will likely see another disappointing result like Ipswich and Wolverhampton.

 

This match gets me nervous, that Wolves match wasn’t too long ago.

 

Maintain confidence. Maintain confidence.

I'm not sure if that message is more for the team or for me. Like the others here, I am also worried that Fulham may play down to the level of their competition. This match has frustrating written all over it - dominate possession and passing statistics but somehow end up with less shots and possibly goals.

In the team news, Silva gave an estimate of at least 8-10 weeks for Tete to return. Thankfully there is not a drop in quality with Castagne. Andersen is back in training but Nelson and Reed are still a ways out. Bassey and Cairney will be back though.

Fulham have had a few dominating performances this season but haven't really blown anyone out. I say it's about time...

 

What a snoozefest. Only getting 1 point against the worst team in the league. Not a good way to start my morning.

 

This might have been the most boring Fulham match in years. One bright spot: Josh King. The boy has talent and isn't overawed by the big stage. He was our best player in the first half. Let's not sell him to Liverpool or Tottenham as we are wont to do. I must have missed some announcement about ESR -- why wasn't he even on the bench?

Is it a coaching failure that we're always at 50% (tops) against the bottom of the table teams? On the heels of this uninspired result, I watched much of the Tottenham--Liverpool game. Liverpool that we outplayed and should have defeated romped to a 6:3 victory away on the same day we failed to score against a woeful Southampton. It's a weird league. And we are a weird team.

 

The lack of effort here is quite astounding. Fulham played the entire match as if they were up two-nil. There was no urgency. Cairney was mostly invisible, Iwobi forgot his shooting boots, and Muniz couldn’t hold up a finger.

Definitely a match day to forget.

 

That was a weird match. I think it was a huge mistake to not start Lukic with Berge. I assume that Smith Rowe was ill since he wasn't in the squad. If true, that combined with Pereira's suspension would make starting King a reasonable choice - and I agree @daddude7 he was Fulham's best player in the first half.

I think Fulham needs space to make their offense work. When they face a team that sits back in a compact shape it wrecks Fulham's attack. That's why I was so pissed late in the game that Traore wasn't sitting in the center circle when Southampton had a corner. Instead he was playing defense in the box. When Leno got the ball he had no release and by the time Fulham got into the Southampton half they had already reorganized. Those are the opportunities they need to grab against a defensive team.

Fulham is so good this season, but once again we're going to be ruing dropped points against relegation squads like last year.

 

Josh King got MotM! Rightly so!
https://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2024/december/23/man-of-the-match-result--southampton/

As a sign of how weird Fulham is, they will finish the first half of the season with at least as many points against the top three as the bottom three - possibly more!