Cottage POV

The international break is never an eagerly anticipated experience, more so when its friendlies and whilst UEFA will try to claim the Nations League means something, it doesn’t and never will. For me, it’s a break from football, I rarely watch the games though will be intrigued to see Thomas Tuchel’s first squad and performances from January, I’ll rather have the free hours in my life and give internationals their full attention for qualifiers and tournaments.

The biggest dread of clubs throughout these breaks is losing key players to injury, often playing in sub standard conditions. In Nigeria’s case, the situation of CAF saw Alex Iwobi, Calvin Bassey and co spend over 16 hours in an airport in Libya with no support from their hosts which only bears accusations at attempted shithousery from Libya. Good on Nigeria for pulling out of the fixture and heading home.

Rumour has it, there was a united gritting of the teeth in SW6 and surrounding areas during Serbia’s 2-0 win over Switzerland and not for seeing the fatty up top, but new hero Sasa Lukic going down with a shoulder injury. The extent of the injury is yet to be confirmed but its expected he misses a few games, I’m sure we’ll get some answers from Marco Silva’s press conference at some point today.

It’s a testament to his start of the season that Fulham supporters are struggling to picture how we cope without the Serbian no.6 at the base of midfield and hence the title of this post. There’s no better compliment you can pay to a player than the dread of picturing a Fulham team without them. In recent years, that honour has bestowed a couple including Sasa Lukic’s predecessor Joao Palhinha and his fellow countryman Aleksandar Mitrovic. The club in those cases had transfer windows to remould the squad whereas Fulham now have one true option to fill that position at the base of midfield.

£20m (rising to £25m) man Sander Berge, its your time to shine. A lack of pre-season at Burnley before his move to Fulham has seen his minutes limit, starting just one Premier League game as a tactical inclusion at Manchester City before the break. Thankfully, a couple of 90 minutes on international duty for Norway will hopefully have him match ready to go to stake his claim in the deepest midfield role for Fulham. At 6ft5, his physical presence is closer to Joao Palhinha than perhaps that of Sasa Lukic, but Lukic has glided across midfield playing clean football in possession, efficient and consistent cycling of the ball whilst the nature of his role and Fulham’s more forward focused vibe in midfield will lead to yellow cards.

Neither are particularly dominant in the tackle, not when you compare to the elite ball winner that was Joao Palhinha but both like the ball at their feet, with Sander Berge named Burnley’s Player (and Player’s Player) of the season last year at the base of their midfield whilst he was their most impressive player as they left Fulham with a 2-0 win a couple days before Christmas. Berge has long been touted an excellent prospect across Europe going back to his days at Valerenga and Genk, his performances for the latter saw him named in the UEFA Champions League Breakthrough Team in 2019 prior to his move to England at Sheffield United. A couple of names alongside him in that team: Kai Havertz, Dani Olmo, Rodrygo, Erling Haaland, Lautauro Martinez, Benjamin Pavard and Achraf Hakimi. He was even in the mix for a move to Manchester United as a replacement for Scott McTominay before we left that market and made Sander Berge a Fulham player.

The standard has been set by Sasa Lukic, it’s now for Sander Berge to step in against some tough competition at Aston Villa. Even with injuries to Boubacar Kamara and potentially missing John McGinn and Amadou Onana; Villa boast Ross Barkley and Youri Tielemans in the middle of the park in what should be a terrific fixture out of the international break. Both teams excel on the counter, both teams have some tremendous individual talent and both are excellently coached.

Marco Silva will look to get his first win over Aston Villa since Unai Emery taking charge, Silva’s 3-0 win over Villa very close to 2 years ago to the day saw the sacking of Steven Gerrard and an incredible rise for what was a floundering Villa team. Plenty of narrative for this game with the great unknown of the first game out of an international break and for Fulham the biggest question will be how they adapt to life without Sasa Lukic with a spot in the top 6 up for grabs with a victory.