Fulham tactics

I’ve watched Fulham a fair bit over the last couple of seasons live.

Fair to say Silva has a set way of playing but within that gives players a fair amount of freedom to attack.

When the don’t have the ball they have a fairly solid shape, play a midfield block and are hard to play though - I suspect we may have looked at that and analysed it given the size and type of players we bought this summer.

If they win the ball then in transition they look to get forward and wide very quickly and will try and get an overload with the FB bombing forwards, they are quite happy to hit long balls often on the diagonal and look to get in behind.

When they have normal possession they look to open teams up but are fairly disciplined in resetting the pattern of play and giving it back to the CB or DM.

Left side likely to be a challenge for us as Robinson, Iwobe and King all fairly quick and skilful and quite comfortable getting the ball in tight spaces. Again, will often try and get the full back in behind or mix it up and try and get Ling though on the inside.

When it doesn’t work can look very robotic with the resets to the CB.

If the are being attacked and win the ball then they can look v v good on the counter.


Should be a good test for us as to how far we have come as they are certainly no mugs and have dangerous players up front.

Gonna be tight, for sure.

As I said in my Fulham 'cottagers' thread most of their attacks come from the wider channels, usually the left.

Their center-backs Andersen & Bassey are showing individual struggles so far so dont quite work in tandem as of yet.
So if we can stretch them apart & hopefully get DCL on at some stage their heading stats are woeful presently which maybe the game changer.

We are a very fit team over the 90 so chances will happen as the game moves on & the use of our pace is gonna be crucial in wide areas.

For me the game is gonna be won or lost on which teams full-backs come out on top over the 90 - so need to sharpe & steady in possession & hopefully the niggling injuries we are carrying wont disrupt our match flow.

Daft as it seems, Craven Cottage can be a blowing, windy ground with it being so near River Thames, not sure how their new stand will effect that now - whatever short precision passing a must & with the odd one direct up onto DCL wont go amis too.

Calvin Lewis will have lot of minutes and Harry may get a run.

should be a very interesting game to watch.

Yep within ‘zones’ of the pitch the players in those zones rotate a lot too to try to create space or overloads.

Iwobe can be a handful.

Agree MT that the two CB can get exposed but Silva uses a double pivot defensively to try to cut out space and they use their size and height to make it difficult.

They are vulnerable to the ball over the top down the middle or through balls if there is a gap but very very organised and well drilled.

London pressers tonight stating Fulhams only injury concern is with their French defender Issa Diop who is nursing an unspecified knock & will be assessed ahead of kickoff, this guy is a decent centre-back for them so maybe a blessing for us if he does not play as their current central-pairing do make reported mistakes.

Sadly, Antonee Robinson should be fit to start his first league game of the season at left-back, which could see Timothy Castagne drop out of the side while Bassey, Andersen & Kenny Tete are set to retain their places in the back four.

Attackers Kevin, Chukwueze & Kusi-Asare who all joined the Cottagers on deadline day are all in contention to earn a place in the matchday squad, but it remains to be seen if Silva will be tempted to name any of the 3 in his starting lineup.

One plus for us via stats is that Silvas side have now gone 12 PL games without keeping a clean sheet & have only kept only 5 across their last 43 league fixtures, well, hes still playing the same style they used last season, so goals are a defo possibility for us. 👍
However, Fulham have won their last 3 meetings with Leeds, so time to fix that stat !

Hope you enjoy the game & hospitality H.

Cheers MT

Robinson is definitely the best LB outside the top 4 and even then maybe the best in the league. Think Fulham paid about 1.5m for him from Wigan - maybe their best ever signing.

Iwobi, King, Jimenez and Lukic are all good players - Smith Rowe doesn’t make the starting line up any more.

It sure will be hard but key will be not going behind and looking them to sit back.