Sunday 8 December 2024 Craven Cottage USA ”TV”: Peacock 9am ET We face some familiar faces: Leno, Iwobi, ESR (Nelson’s loan terms prevent him). And Alex in particular is on fire lately. As you could almost say about Fulham generally... their win yesterday has them up to 6th! Team news? Nada neuvo! Mikel was typically tight-lipped today when asked specifically about Gabriel & Calafiori. But he also said “we have a couple” so with any luck it’s just those 2 and nobody else (new). Even if they don’t start, I’d expect ~2 rotations in, especially Martinelli. And LB is an “interesting” call. All of the big/top 4 teams are away this round, so there’s points to be dropped. Pool@Goodison, Chel$ea@WHL, Citeh@Selhurst. Goes without saying we must secure our 3 points and hope 1 or 2 of our rivals don’t. And once again the fixture gods give us 1 more day rest than our opponents... obviously that won’t last, so let’s capitalize on that again, while we’ve got it!
THAT is the lineup I imagined as I went to bed last night. Partey at RB, Timber at LB, which speaks to how Mikel feels about the other LB choices (or new injuries/illness to Cala & Zinny???). Anyway that's a good enough lineup to win at the Cottage, so... COYG!!!!
The only things keeping this squad together are Partey’s hamstrings and Timber's surgically repaired knee, what could go wrong? This summers transfer signings are somehow even worse than that summer when they only signed Cech.
Saliba, Gabby, Timber, White, Kiwior, OZ, Tomi, Calafiori, KT, and MLS That's 10 defenders - how many should've been signed in the summer?
Yes, one healthy season that represents half the minutes he's played in his career. Transfermarkt lists 17 injuries at age 23 and doesn't include whatever he is currently out for. https://www.transfermarkt.us/riccardo-calafiori/verletzungen/spieler/502821
Last season was his second proper first-team season, of course that's where most of his minutes came from. There also aren't many fullbacks without that kind of injury history - it's an impossible role to play in the modern game. Look at like, Udogie at Tottenham. Same age, very similar injury history.
Timber on the left hurts us with the way he has built up chemistry with Ode and Saka, hopefully during the match we move Partey to MF, Jorginho off, Timber to RB and Tierney to LB because Partey just isn't a good RB.
Rice with a great run, Trossard is doing those balls a lot unfortunately Rice isn't the player you want shooting on the left from there.