Cottage POV

If I had to have a little short summary about yesterday’s victory at the City Ground, it’d be “over the line.” It wasn’t a pretty game to watch and it’s not really a surprise that it took a penalty to see our only goal of the day where either keeper were only called in to make a single save each. Whilst Fulham continued the development of their new look 433 in possession, Nottingham Forest switching to a similar formula that saw them win at Anfield with Elliott Anderson and Nicolas Dominguez out wide in lieu of Callum Hudson-Odoi and/or Anthony Elanga felt like the story of the game. The generally tough Taiwo Awoniyi was also surprisingly called upon to create a strike partnership with Chris Wood (sadly, two up top isn’t something we see at all anymore), Awoniyi only lasted the first half and whilst Forest pushed and applied pressure at times, it did have the feeling that Nuno Espirito Santo got his team selection wrong from the off.

As mentioned, it wasn’t a game of goal scoring opportunities, both sides protected their goalkeepers and kept it tight, fine margins were always to decide this fixture and whilst I felt Fulham probably deserved the three points more than their hosts, we moved the ball better, defended better but there really wasn’t much in it at all. Fulham not quite at their fluid best away from home yet and just a trip to the Etihad next to see if we can sharpen up in more uncomfortable situations. Either way, Fulham leave Nottingham with their equal best points tally after six games. An encouraging stat but fairly meaningless, we had a nice opening fixture list and it should really be 3 extra but for a late Joshua Zirkzee goal at Old Trafford and Danny Ings’ equaliser at Craven Cottage.

It’s safe to say the foundations feel in place as we approach the 2nd of 3 international breaks before the all important December to March period. Sasa Lukic has continued his fine job as a successor to Joao Palhinha, in arguably a much more vulnerable role. The inevitable yellow card suspension will come and it’ll come earlier than probably expected with the Serbian on 4 for the season but in this role, it just has to be accepted that cards will come with it. It is quite admirable how he really is left more than Palhinha ever really was, whilst Fulham drop into shape into a 442 which is familiar, in transition, Sasa is the safety blanket with Andreas and Smith Rowe pushing right up the pitch. A salute to the Serbian for a lovely development in his 18 months at the club.

I won’t talk about the penalties, I find football talking about refereeing is just an awful experience, never mind when they don’t know what they want to rule as well. I’ve long been a believer that shades of grey in a rule book is no good for anyone but here we are.

What I will talk about though is Joachim Andersen already being worth every penny of £30m and I can’t really believe Crystal Palace chose to cash in. To be fair, Maxence Lacroix was on my list at centre back in the summer but this was in a world that Palace would ever sell us a player like Andersen, that deal back in May would have felt impossible but here we are. The thought I had during the game was, we used to talk about deep lying playmakers years ago. Someone like Danny Murphy would be described as the quarterback of the team, plenty of touches, distributing the ball and orchestrating proceedings. Without getting into details like inverted full backs and the like, one of the biggest developments in football has been the ball playing centre back and that ‘quarterbacking’ role has dropped a layer of play. Joachim Andersen is always willing to receive and distribute and has become the key figure in our build up from the back whilst his leadership and box defending is a level above anything we’ve had since our return to the Premier League. Yes it was annoying to lose Tosin for nothing, but I have zero doubts that Joachim Andersen is a clean upgrade on him.

I will try not to wax lyrical about Lukic and Andersen like the past couple of weeks have been but it speaks volumes to both of their recent form.

I didn’t want to ramble too long for this one, there’s wasn’t much to talk about but I also don’t have much time today. But a shout out to Raul who scored his 50th Premier League goal, his 3rd in 3 consecutive games and a comfortably dispatched penalty, only taken by the Mexican because Andreas Pereira had to go off after being seen by the physios I believe. He’s putting in a shift, had Fulham’s only two shots on target and is retaining possession up top. It would be nice to have a Rodrigo Muniz come back story but Raul’s 11 goals in 24 starts since arriving at Fulham is a nice return and he’s done a good job helping pick up the slack after Aleksandar Mitrovic’s exit and Rodrigo Muniz’s cold period here. He’s not perfect but he’s ours and settling in with Marco Silva getting both him and Adama Traore close to their Wolves peak.

Up the Fulham, just the small task of a trip to City now. What will be, will be but whisper it quietly… *check the expiry date on your passports*