Cottage POV

Firstly, a warm welcome to our new signing Sander Berge and a welcome back to his fellow Scandinavian Joachim Andersen. A pair of enormous Nordics who fill priority positions for the club and who I’m sure will justify the outlay. The transfer window closes on the 30th August, 11pm UK time and Marco Silva has already thrown out there that the club will sign an attacker, the priority seemingly convincing Rayan Cherki to join from Lyon but as we’ve seen from Tony Khan’s Fulham – names will crop up out of the blue on the final day and I’ll be amazed if we’re not tempted into more than one final day deal.

The Game Itself

Onto the proper stuff though, despite the wet and windy weather, wasn’t it glorious to have a Saturday 3pm trip to Craven Cottage back? Even better with the club under the guidance of Marco Silva, more often than not you’re going to get a good showing from a developing squad with some excellent players. Credit to him and his coaching staff how he brings players along individually on top of the wider team structure at play. I actually got to the Cottage very late by my standards (about 2:30pm, my anxiety is killer most weeks about being late to the point I’ve been hanging around the Cottage before doors opened) but it was an excellent vibe with the singer as a packed Hammersmith End was its typical shoulder-to-shoulder shuffle through to get to the terraces.

I thought Fulham were deserving of a victory though the score line and situation was never completely comfortable, the team got the points they deserved with goals from Arsenal’s Hale End (though I despise this narrative). A lovely moment seeing Emile Smith Rowe score on his home debut, a goal that appeared to mean the world to him after two tough years at Arsenal; one through injuries and last year just on the fringes watching Arsenal’s unsuccessful title chase. Fulham will reap the rewards helping the “Croydon De Bruyne” get regular football and fulfil his massive potential as an elite footballer. It was Alex Iwobi who won the game for Fulham, collecting a phenomenal Antonee Robinson ball over the top and clinically dispatching past Mads Hermansen; Iwobi another player who Marco Silva will look to help reach peak performances as a similarly bright prospect out of the Arsenal academy. Perhaps easy to forget that Iwobi had the potential that saw a Marco Silva led Everton splash big cash on him at a similar age to Smith Rowe; though unfortunately for both (and fortunately for Fulham), Silva only lasted to December of that season.

Well this feels like a chaotic post, does it make sense? Who knows, we’ll throw some shit into the ether either way. 95% of the things I write is freestyle, there’s no real plan of where it goes and how it’ll flow or anything overly professional so I always excuse for ramblings. Anyway, player of the match conversations – the club voted one was awarded to Emile Smith Rowe. Can’t say I agreed, though a brighter performance from him and I don’t mind the confidence boost fan backing may give him. For me, both full backs dominated their duels on the flank and deserve their flowers. Credit to Kenny Tete for battling back to reclaim his spot from Timothy Castagne, who had me wondering whether we’d ever see Kenny again leading into the final year of his contract (something I’m sure the club will be negotiating once the window closes if they’re not already). I’ve been quietly confidently calling Antonee Robinson one of the best left backs in the league, now if we’re talking out-and-out full backs, I will say Jedi is the best in the league and is a club-record sale level of footballer, his development since arriving from Wigan has been outstanding. A word for Sasa Lukic as well, who is coming on leaps and bounds in the 6 role, not as obviously dominant as Joao Palhinha but he’s a clean and tidy player who goes about business in a fairly understated manner.

All in all, a solid team performance that navigated a game which had the potential to be a tricky fixture, as does next week as these promoted sides will see Fulham as their first real opportunity to get three points after Leicester opened up at home to Spurs (getting an excellent point) and Ipswich have had to host Liverpool and travel to Manchester City. Ipswich away next weekend will be a tough game, they play with some vim and vigour and whilst the squad hasn’t been enough for two of the media anointed “big six,” this will be their first true measuring stick of their potential to stay in the Premier League with their Championship super team.

Squad depth

I wanted to wrap this up with a thought I had whilst watching the game, especially with Birmingham in the cup on the horizon. How bloody good has our squad depth become? If we play a completely different eleven on Tuesday night, it’d look a little something like:

Benda, Castagne, Andersen, Cuenca, Sessegnon; Berge, Reed, Cairney, Wilson, Raul, Stansfield.

Yes Sessegnon is seen as a left back, accept it until he plays elsewhere – I have another piece planned talking about the left back in this system. But anyway, besides the point – that eleven above does not even include the likes of Josh King, Alex Borto, Luc De Fougerolles and Martial Godo as academy players involved with the first team in pre-season and given senior squad numbers.

We’ve got an attacker to add but you see some longer term potential of squad building and the serious depth we’ve managed to put together, there’s an entire piece on its own of different team combinations for different situations we’re capable of putting together.