Positives and negatives: Fulham 1-4 Wolverhampton Wanderers

Jack Stroudley assesses a day to forget at the Cottage.

Anyone else miss the international break? Club football returned with a day to forget at Craven Cottage as Fulham were heavily beaten by Wolves. A wet, windy and miserable day on the Thames was perfectly encapsulated by a pretty drab first-half and a toothless second. Playing the last ten with ten didn’t help but is there any salvation to take from this result?

Positives

Wobe’s wonder goal

The only crumb of comfort to come from the game was Alex Iwobi, who was the brightest spark playing for a relatively dimly -it team. He looked to create, drove with the ball and provided an option time and time again. The Nigerian’s goal was a peach and summed up the type of season he’s having in black and white. Long may it continue.

Negatives

Inept after internationals

Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and Fulham starting slowly after the international breaks. Saturday felt like a great opportunity to pick up where we left off at Selhurst and go into a tricky December full of confidence, what happened was the complete opposite. I don’t really know how to explain why we are so poor after these breaks, we just are. Does a large chunk of the squad representing their nations mean we start a bit leggy? Maybe it’s a mentality thing? Either way it’s something that Silva needs to nip in the bud – three returns to club football this season, three home games, one point. Bleak.

Streaky strikers

The problem with having two patchy strikers is when neither of them are in a patch, it’s quite painful to watch. Jimenez is fine, he’s a fine striker who can score a handful of goals a season. That being said, with the plethora of talent across our squad now we do feel very light at the focal point. Someone to grab a game by the scruff of the neck, bully defences and force chances out of nothing. Mario Lemina played as a makeshift central defender today and was one of the better players on the pitch, make of that what you will. Muniz doesn’t look up to it either – which is a real shame after his spell at the latter stage of last season. With January coming up you’d have to imagine that we will be looking to bolster in attack…surely?

Ready for rotation

I wrote after Palace about Fulham being blessed with depth, now feels like the right time to make use of that. Coming into a busy period and coming off this result, a shake-up might help. The most obvious change is Harry Wilson who was once again bright off the bench, Nelson looked the weakest of the wide players on Saturday and with it being a few games since he’s scored it might be time to give him a rest.

I was glad to see Lukic back today and thought he did okay, but we looked leggy in midfield without Berge. Hopefully the Norwegian is back for Spurs as I’d like to see him and Lukic together with (dare I say it) Smith-Rowe dropped who was a complete passenger in the midfield. Hopefully Andersen’s injury isn’t too serious and this is a result that Fulham can put behind them, a drab day and a drab result.