Fulham v AFC Bournemouth

billythekid

billythekid

UTC Legend
Cherries Unbeaten In Last Eight Visits To Craven Cottage

After a forgettable afternoon of football last Sunday against Nottingham Forest at Dean Court, where the game was continually stopping and starting with the referee blowing up for fouls, the game finishing in a 1-1 draw. The Cherries are next on their travels which includes two away games.

First of those is a trip to London and Craven Cottage the home to Fulham since 1896, it’s the oldest football stadium in London. The game is on Saturday at 3 pm. Fulham are in 13th position in the table, one place and one point behind AFCB, with the Cottagers having played one game more. The Cherries are unbeaten in their last eight visits to Craven Cottage.

We last played Marco Silva’s side at Dean Court on Boxing Day, the game finished 3-0 in the Cherries favour and included AFCB’s first penalty for 609 days. It was Fulham’s third defeat in a row. At home and the next game after they lost at Dean Court, Fulham beat another London club, Arsenal 2-1. They drew 1-1 with Everton. Away they lost 1-0 at Stamford Bridge against Chelsea and in their last game they drew 2-2 with Burnley after being two goals up.

Our last meeting at Craven Cottage was in October 2022. Dominic Solanke scored in the opening minutes, only for Issa Diop to equalise twenty minutes later. Jefferson Lerma restored the Cherries lead seven minutes later, AFCB leading 1-2 at half-time. A second half penalty taken by Aleksandar Mitrovic after a foul by Lerma made it 2-2 and that was the final score.

In all our league games away against Fulham, AFCB have W 5, D 7, L 4.
In all competitions, AFCB have W 15, D 12, L 11.

Fulham Team News
On the injury list, leading scorer Raul Jiminez (missed the game at Dean Court through suspension). Harry Wilson, Issa Diop and Adama Traore have also been out injured. Two missing for international duty playing for Nigeria, Calvin Bassey and Alex Iwobi.

Fulham Player To Watch
Joao Palhinha is an important player for Fulham in midfield. Young striker Rodrigo Muniz scored his first Premier League goal against Burnley and was MOM.

AFCB Team News
Philip Billing is suspended. Ryan Christie hopefully will have recovered from a dead leg.

AFCB Player To Watch
We could probably see our new striker Enes Ünal at some point on Saturday. Interesting to see if he is teamed up with Dominic Solanke and how they could complement each other. Ryan Christie and Lewis Cook will be important in our midfield. Romain Faivre might get a start, to give someone a rest after recent run of games.

The Referee
Darren England is in charge of this game. He took our game in the FA Cup recently against Swansea City.
 
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Just been looking at the gap between games over the last four.

First two games Fulham had a 3 day gap and the fourth 4 days.

AFCB was 4 days, 7 days and 3 days.
 
Two losses against top 6 sides then two draws, one unfortunate one not helped by PB and the ref, in the league can dent confidence a bit. With no Mitrovic to haul down a midfielder in our box and scream penalty this time around though, I'm pretty hopeful we can turn them over. Happy that Jiminez is out, also Broja has a knock apparently.
 
Tend to agree... Most of us would have thought 4 points from WHU and Forest, so we're now chasing a win to get us back on track... Fulham and Newcastle will be tough hunting grounds but also 2 perfectly winnable games if we're on top of our game.
 
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I’ve looked at the last 4 league games for Fulham. These were two home games (Arsenal and Everton) and away at Chelsea and Burnley. Fulham have gained 5 points which represents an over-achievement as they had lower xGs in every game. Fulham have scored 4 goals and conceded 4 with xG estimating 5.23 goals and xGc 7.78 conceded.

Goals xG.png

Fulham have had 4 different goal scorers with one goal each 3 players with 1 assist each.

The average positions of the starting line-ups are below. I can’t see a particular pattern.


Av pos.png

The following graph compares summary stats of Fulham and AFCB over the last 4 games. Fulham tend to create more chances but also concede more chances (our goals conceded are distorted by Liverpool scoring 4 and Tottenham 3 from relatively small xGs). The xGs of the two teams are similar, but Fulham have a higher xGc

Comparison.png

Fulham have higher percentage possession over the last 4 games. Fulham are very good at set pieces (a fact I hadn’t noticed) with almost half of the chances coming from these, compared with AFCB’s 26% which is nearer to most team’s value. The percentage of chances from set plays is similar between the two teams.

Percentages.png
 
Matt Stevenson said:
The average positions of the starting line-ups are below. I can’t see a particular pattern.


View attachment 13257
Click to expand...
The pattern could be that they have players well forward regardless of the opposition (which really spans the EPL over these four games.) Maybe that presents opportunities for Senesi to hit more of those long passes to our speedy wingers.
When I watched Fulham before our previous match, they were not impressive. I mean to watch them again before Saturday to see if they seem any better, but I think this is one we could win.
 
Two well matched sides so result really go either way but I am confident of getting something from the game!
 
My take from the Forest game was that it's hard to play Arifowlerball (one for the oaps there) if the players only have a couple of days between games. Hopeful we are due a win and who better to beat than Cheerful Charlie Silva's Fulham!
 
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