Fulham vs. Crystal Palace

Fulham plays Crystal Palace at the Cottage on Sunday with kickoff at 11:30am EST on USA Network.

After two wins and a crazy second half against City that were driven by Chukwueze, Wilson, Iwobi, and King, it seems like Fulham must certainly go into this match with a new expected lineup for the midfield. Lukic should start on the bench to be called on if Fulham needs to nurse a lead, but otherwise Silva should start with the above four and the fireworks they have been able to bring. Palace will be a big challenge for Fulham even if they are at their best. Palace has given up just 11 goals across 14 matches - half as many as Fulham has given up and only bettered by Arsenal's 7 goals. Fulham will need all of the offensive creativity they can muster if they want to have a shot at a win, but the defense will also need to put Tuesday behind them and go for another clean sheet.

Fulham haven't beaten Palace at the Cottage in 20 years, and despite Fulham's good home form this season I don't expect that to change. I expect a close match that will end in a draw against a well managed Crystal Palace.

 

I don't know why but I like our chances for a W.

 

Sessegnon has a hamstring issue and is not in the squad against Palace. Silva has decided to have Tete and Castagne both play. If I had to guess, Castagne goes onto the left. I'm a bit surprised they didn't decide to bring in Cuenca and have either him on Bassey play on the left. I guess we'll see how this goes shortly.

 

Based on the highlights and the live text feed it seemed like Fulham once again played reasonably well in a narrow loss, but that still means zero points. This came down to some very fine margins. Chukwueze was just barely offside and Tete just missed out on clearing the corner that led to the final goal. Fulham really should have converted some of their earlier chances in the first half, but that Fulham goal was pretty sweet. The back and forth between Wilson and Raul before that finish - wow. Just wish it could have gotten Fulham a result.

Fulham really needs to take the the opportunity to grab a lot of points over the next three matches against Burnley, Forest, and West Ham, but absences from the Africa Cup will make that a lot harder after the Burnley match. The timing of that tournament and Fulham's fixtures is really terrible.

 

The VAR rules need to be re-written.
One set of toes should NOT be considered offside. Maybe it’s the offsides rules that need to be modified, or a combination of both. How can a player be expected to ascertain whether or not a toe or finger, or even a hand or foot, is possibly offside, especially at the speed with which the game is played at the highest level?
Answer: They CAN’T.
If the intent is to prevent the attacking team from gaining an unfair advantage it should be measured by the torso. That’s the only true advantage gained by being ahead of a defender, is with the body, not the appendages.

 

One of those matches of which there have been too many that Fulham should have won, deserved to win, but didn't. We dominate most teams in the league but don't turn the possession into enough high-percentage chances.

There isn't enough acceleration in the final third (Harry's and Raul's sublime give and go being an exception), and Marco knows that since he diagnosed the problem himself in the post-match comments. His job is to fix it, but I think he'll need some help ($) from the board and more proactivity from TK in the winter transfer window. I think that this winter window will determine whether he accepts Fulham's new contract offer. We need a good striker, not a kid from the Bayern academy. And I think that paradoxically having both Berge and Lukic on the team hurts us--neither of them is good enough to play the single-pivot #6 behind an #8 (e.g. Iwobi, Cairney) and a #10 (e.g. King, Wilson-the Wales version), and when they are both playing we lose energy and forward momentum and still let in stupid goals.