Fulham were widely tipped for relegation following promotion, but Marco Silva has built a team capable of holding its own at a higher level.
It was no surprise that so many of us predicted them to go down this season. After all, that’s exactly what happened the last two times they had been promoted. But as November draws close with the Premier League still looking in a slightly unusual shape, it seems as though a lot of us got it wrong with Fulham.
In mitigation, there was a slight air of unhappiness around the club during the summer over ticket prices and particularly the £1,000 cost of getting a ticket in the still uncompleted Riverside Stand. And although promotion was more or less confirmed by the middle of March, they limped rather than sprinted over the finishing line to the Championship title, losing five and drawing two of their last 11 games.
The end of last season seemed to offer Fulham supporters a grim portent of another campaign at the wrong end of the Premier League, but under Marco Silva, Fulham have blossomed and sit in seventh place in the table, with a brief wobble that took in two successive defeats rectified with two straight wins against Aston Villa and Leeds.
Fulham have flourished since Silva took control of the team, with some smart operation in the transfer market. The club’s summer transfer activity looks truly excellent. Bernd Leno is a solid and experienced goalkeeper who has thrived from being a first choice again; Andreas Pereira has benefited from making the opposite journey (in terms of exposure) as he looks rejuvenated away from Manchester United. Joao Palhinha has added a solid core to their defensive midfield.
This has been matched by improvement from key players already at the club, with the development of Harrison Reed a case in point. A fringe player at Southampton, Reed only played 17 times for the Saints and was loaned out to Norwich City and Blackburn Rovers before first arriving at Craven Cottage in August 2019. Having made that switch permanent a year later, Reed has successfully pushed himself into their first team and flourished under Silva, with recent performances making him look increasingly indispensable.
And then there’s the big, hairy, occasionally angry, Serbian elephant in the room. Aleksandar Mitrovic has been a flag around whom all of Fulham could rally since first arriving at Craven Cottage in February 2019, but this season has seen him fit the final pieces to the jigsaw of his game. We…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Football365…