Fulham head to south Wales on Saturday fresh from returning to winning ways in midweek against Peterborough and looking to extend their lead lead at the top of the Championship to nine points with a win at Cardiff City. Nearest challengers Bournemouth will have to deal to further fixture congestion after their last two matches were postponed due to the inclement weather and Marco Silva will be hoping his charges have put their hiccup against Huddersfield firmly behind them. Coming back from the principality with all three points won’t be easy: the Bluebirds are much improved since Steve Morison succeeded Mick McCarthy and were desperately unfortunate to be beaten by a couple of late Terriers goals on Wednesday night.
Despite the disappointment in Yorkshire, Cardiff have won four of their last seven matches to move fifteen points clear of the relegation zone. Interim manager Morison is putting together a compelling case to be handed the full-time job and has overhauled the approach from McCarthy’s rather primitive style to get the sort of results that a squad containing some real individual quality has always threatened to achieve. Ryan Wintle has returned rejuvenated from a loan spell at Blackpool, whilst the tireless Tommy Doyle, a rumoured transfer target for Fulham last summer, showed all of his prodigious talent by scoring a brilliant opening goal at the John Smith’s Stadium. Will Vaulks has been in outstanding form as well of late and might consider himself unlucky not to feature in Rob Page’s international plans. Morison’s attacking resources could be supplemented by on-loan Middlesbrough striker Uche Ikpeazu, who is still waiting for a first start since arriving from the Riverside.
Morison spoke earlier today about his desire to pose problems for the league leaders based on extensive video analysis and Cardiff’s threat in the final third. The Bluebirds have now scored in eight consecutive matches, removing the shot-shy nature of some of their most maddening defeats under McCarthy, and will definitely fancy exploiting some of the defensive frailties that Fulham have displayed in their recent home outings against Huddersfield and Peterborough. With a bumper crowd expected on a day of heightened English-Welsh rivalry, Cardiff will be keen to spring another surprise.
Fulham shook off the setback suffered against in-form Huddersfield with a professional performance to see off struggling Peterborough. The headlines centred around Aleksandar Mitrovic breaking Ivan Toney’s Championship goals record with another brace, but the seamless return of Jean Michael Seri – and the pair’s subsequent targeting of the league title – was arguably even more encouraging. The Ivorian’s range of peerless passing was sensational, especially in the second period, when two deliciously floated forward palls should have made the scoreline much more comfortable. Fulham’s sloppiness was in evidence against at the death, when they made injury time much more nervy after gifting a goal to Jack Marriott, and they will need to much more defensively sound from the off tomorrow afternoon.
Silva’s selection dilemma will revolve around whether to reintroduce any of the players who missed Wednesday’s night win. Tom Cairney will miss the trip to Wales as his illness rules him out of a second successive fixture, which should see Seri and Harrison Reed continue in the middle of the park for an encounter that will demand both competitiveness and intensity from the very first whistle. The standout candidate for a return would be Harry Wilson, who started on the bench in midweek, but has been outstanding for much of this season and spent most of the last campaign in the Welsh capital, scoring seven goals in 38 appearances for Cardiff. Rodrigo Muniz is set to return to the match day squad, but will have to await a chance to influence proceedings from the bench after recovering from his calf problem.
MY FULHAM XI (4-2-3-1): Rodak; Williams, Bryan, Adarabioyo, Ream; Reed, Seri; Wilson, Carvalho, Kebano; Mitrovic. Subs: Gazzaniga, Tete, Hector, Chalobah, Decordova-Reid, Cavaleiro, Muniz.
