Fulham vs. Wolverhampton

Fulham has a must-win match at Craven Cottage on Saturday vs. Wolverhampton. Kickoff is at 11am EDT on Peacock. Please note the time. England switched to standard time last weekend, so for this match it is an hour later than what you might expect. I'm thrilled to finally have a chance to watch a full match this season live. So of course, if this all goes badly it will be entirely my fault.

Fulham sits just outside the relegation zone, but it could easily be argued they've had some tough match-ups. The only loss at home so far has come to league-leaders, Arsenal, and away loses came against quality teams. So this is the kind of opponent that Fulham must defeat to get back to being comfortably mid-table. Except, last season, these were the matches that Fulham couldn't seem to win. And Fulham have continued to struggle against weaker competition. So I come into this one with zero confidence that Fulham will get all three points. Due to Fulham's struggle to score more than one goal in league matches (done only once in the 3-1 win against Brentford) this is likely to be a close match. I think this is due to the Lukic/Berge midfield duo that is just too defensively minded. There have been some positive signs - like Berge taking a decent shot last week and Iwobi having a good spell in the midfield - but I expect more frustration and lack of creativity going forward against Wolves.

Wolves come into this, like Fulham, after rotating the squad in a mid-week Cup match. Wolves fell behind by three goals early to Chelsea, but managed to come back in the second half to only lose 4-3. If you could have an encouraging loss, that was it. Fulham have a long history of ending streaks so Wolves probably look at this as a good opportunity to get their first win of the season.

Fulham does have some encouraging news with injuries. Wilson, Chukwueze, Smith Rowe, and Muniz available again, but unlikely to start. Hopefully Wilson or Chukwueze can come in on the right side since Traore had been the only option. Raul will be a game-time decision, so having Muniz available even for just part of the match could be critical.