Given Fulham’s history of early League Cup exits, avoiding a banana skin at Birmingham City is nothing to be sniffed at. Sky Sports brought their cameras in the hope of recording a Cup upset and a Blues side brimming with confidence under new boss Chris Davies played plenty of progressive football, but as Marco Silva alluded to after full time, last night was all about making into the hat for the third round and getting some minutes in the legs of players who hadn’t seen much action in the first fortnight of the new Premier League season.

The fact that Fulham could make eleven changes from the team that registered their first win of the season against Leicester City on Saturday and still put out such a strong line-up shows just how far the club’s recruitment has come in recent years. There were second debuts for Joachim Andersen and Ryan Sessegnon. The Dane didn’t take long to remind us of his distribution – arguably the main reason why the Whites were willing to part with plenty of cash to bring him back from Crystal Palace – with a beautiful ball for the second goal. Sessegnon showed signs of rust and nerves at left back but improved as the evening went on, with those trademark surges forward reminiscent of his early days in a Fulham shirt.

Silva defended both his selections and substitutions as being necessary to ensure that all the members of his squad would be able to step in against Ipswich Town if required. You had to feel for Birmingham’s full backs having to deal with late bursts from the likes of Emile Smith Rowe and Adama Traore. The game had long since been settled and, while there has been criticism on social media platforms and the messageboards about the passive nature of Fuham’s second half display, it looked as if the Londoners had a number of gears to go through if required.

The big worry about signing Sander Berge to make an immediate impact in the engine room was that the Norwegian had played so little football of late – and it showed for much of last night’s encounter. Berge, who is a totally different profile of player to Fulham’s other midfielders, will help to make the Whites a more physical proposition in time and provide a bit of ballast that has been missing since the departure of Joao Palhinha. You could easily see him slotting in alongisde Sasa Lukic to make SIlva’s side tougher to play through in the coming weeks.

But the major takeaway of the evening – aside from Raul Jimenez converting that early penalty with a level of confidence you don’t usually associate with a Fulham centre forward – was the performance of two youngsters who had the most to gain from this outing. A summer of speculation and niggles has left us not sure what to expect from Jay Stansfield but Silva has been insistent that the forward has a first-team future in the Premier League. Playing from a wider position didn’t seem to faze the England under-21 international and he showed the poise in front of goal that makes him such a serious talent to put the game to bed inside the first fifteen minutes. Loaning him out again in the closing days of the transfer window would be a retrograde step: Stansfield has the ability to be a point of difference in the Premier League now, from almost any position in the forward line. He might even be a younger version of Bobby De Cordova-Reid and become Fulham’s Mr. Versatile.

The Fulham head coach has taken some criticism from fans about a perceived reluctance to blood some of the club’s academy proteges. There was no such fear about throwing seventeen year-old Josh King into the St. Andrew’s cauldron and, just like every other test the midfielder has faced during his time at Fulham, he passed with flying colours. King has accelerated through the age groups at Motspur Park on account of his technical ability, work ethic and reading of the game – all of which were on display throughout a compelling cameo. There’s much more to come from him as well as this Fulham side.