{"id":12082,"date":"2025-10-17T18:26:57","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T17:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=12082"},"modified":"2025-10-19T09:51:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T08:51:54","slug":"a-good-day-for-a-stroll-by-the-thames","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=12082","title":{"rendered":"A Good Day For A Stroll By The Thames"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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And so to Craven Cottage, the throw-back Thames-side home of our hosts for Saturday’s ultimate Premier League game of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fulham will have resided there for 130 years come next year \u2014 and the ground came close to being our home, too, in the 1910s. There is a bare-bones version of the story on the club site<\/a>. Still, the full tale of the grand ambition, mischievous intrigues and general skullduggery then afoot will make for a story here for another interminable interlull.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Craven Cottage is the oldest continually operating football club stadium in London. With Everton having vacated Goodson Park, it is now also the second-oldest in the Premier League after Molineux.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old-school, timbered cosiness of the stadium, designed by Highbury’s architect, Archibald Leitch, is slowly giving way to modernism. The old Riverside Stand has been redeveloped into a deluxe steel-and-glass edifice that overlooks the river on one side and the pitch on the other, with abundant hospitality opportunities in between. Yet the 30,000-seat ground retains sufficient charm and intimacy to remain a favourite of travelling faithfuls and, to others, becomes a refuge from high prices (not any more in the Riverside stand – tickets are \u00a3160 a seat for this match, Ed.) and ticket ballots elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opposition<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a sprinkling of our old boys and the appointment of Marco Silva as manager in mid-2021, Fulham has established itself as a mid-table Premier League club after a spell oscillating between the top tier and the Championship. Silva is enjoying his longest and most successful spell in management since being at Olympiacos a decade ago, whence he trudged an unglamorous path to SW6 via Hull, Watford and Everton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He favours 4-2-3-1, although he went with 3-4-2-1 at Bournemouth immediately before the interlull, a formation he had not used since visiting the Emirates last season. As those games resulted in 3-1 and 2-1 defeats, a return to familiar form seems likely, especially as it secured the 1-1 draw against us at the Cottage last season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bernd Leno, formerly of this parish, should be between the sticks. The German glove-butler’s 126th appearance for Fulham would take him to one more than he made for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Denmark international Joachim Andersen, buoyed by scoring his first international goal in 47 appearances on Sunday, will be at the heart of the defence alongside Nigeria international Calvin Bassey. However, first-choice right back, Netherlands international Kenny Tete, is probably off games, and the indefatigable Milton Keynes-born US international left back Antonee Robinson definitely is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan Sessegnon, who lost the distinction of being the youngest scorer for England’s U-19s to our very own Max Dowman this week, and Belgium international Timothy Castagne will probably flank Andersen and Bassey. Silva can also call on utility defenders Spaniard Jorge Cuenca, formerly of Villarreal, for the left side, and French-Moroccan ex-West Ham man Issa Diop for the other, either as substitutes or should he decide to go with a back three after all and play Sessegnon and Castagne as wing-backs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All mostly in their late 20s and well-established in their national teams, Fulham’s defenders make for an experienced, battle-hardened Premier League unit that tends to raise its game against top sides and has yet to lose this season at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another PL stalwart, Norwegian international Sander Berge, will provide one half of the defensive midfield pivot. His partner, Serbian international Sasa Lukic, is struggling with a muscle injury that will likely rule him out of the game, opening the door for a first league start this season for club captain Tom Cairney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In front of them, Silva has ESR and Alex Iwobi, neither of whom needs any introduction. Promising 18-year-old attacking midfielder Josh King is having a breakthrough season and has just made his England U-21 debut. Wales winger Harry Wilson and Adama Traor\u00e9, who has yet to start a game this season, offer guile and power, respectively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two other wingers arrived in the summer and are being worked into the team. One is Kevin, a 22-year-old Brazilian bought from Shakhtar Donetsk for \u20ac40 million \u2014 a rich price for an uncapped forward, although competition for places in Brazil’s attack is fierce. Just ask Gabi Martinelli. The other is AC Milan loanee Samuel Chukwueze, who, like compatriot Bassey, has some 50 Nigeria caps, but, Silva says, is an injury doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silva has more injury problems up front. Senior strikers Rodrigo Muniz and Raul Jimenez are ruled out and less than 50\/50, respectively, the latter having pulled out of the Mexico squad this interlull past. King was pressed into service for the Bournemouth game. Silva’s other option is another 18-year-old, Jonah Kusi-Asare. The Sweden U-21 striker, on loan from Bayern Munich, has six minutes of Bundesliga experience and made Fulham’s bench for the first time for the Bournemouth game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cottagers go into this game 14th in the league, with two wins, two draws and three losses from its seven league games, two of the losses coming in its two most recent games, at Villa Park and the Vitality Stadium. It has scored eight goals and conceded eleven. Neither prolific nor porous, its eight points leave it equidistant from the European places and the relegation zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The injury list has shrunk with Piero Hincapi\u00e9 now available, but Jes\u00f9s, Martin \u00d8degaard, Kai Havertz and Noni Madueke remain off games. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost every fit player was on international duty, as were many of Fulham’s, as Bath chronicled in the previous drinks<\/a>. All ours seem to have returned unscathed, but Arteta will be assessing until the last possible moment how much the travel and minutes played have drained them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both big and medium-sized Gabi travelled to Seoul and Tokyo for Brazil’s friendlies, for example, and Declan Rice played two games for England with a sore back and did not last past 70 minutes in either. Reading the runes of Arteta’s pre-match press conference \u2014 always a fool’s errand \u2014 I posit this XI to start:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zubimendi, Merino<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saka, Eze, Trossard<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gy\u00f6keres<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I expect plenty of early rotation and a cameo debut for Hincapi\u00e9. Arteta will need all his squad to be tan, rested and ready for the sterner test of Atletico Madrid in the Champions League next Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fingers and thumbs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This will be the 66th competitive meeting with Fulham, the 65th if you don’t count (remarkably) the solitary cup tie\u2014an FA Cup first-round match in 1904 that Woolwich won 1-0 on a waterlogged Manor Ground. You can count the games we have lost since on the digits of two hands with a thumb to spare. Use that to count the number of times Silva has beaten Arteta in six attempts, although he did beat Arsenal with his Olympiacos, Watford and Everton teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, last December, we suffered a draw at Craven Cottage, in a game ably described by C100<\/a> that we should have won. It was doubly infuriating because VAR chalked off what would have been a last-minute Saka winner. We did not know it that day, but it would be the first of three draws in a month against mid-table teams that would prove costly at the end of the campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The previous season, we had lost 2-1 at Craven Cottage during a mid-season mini-slump that cost us another six points, triple the final gap between ourselves and Manchester City. 21CG reported<\/a> the details of an insipid performance. It was the sole defeat in 18 away games against other London sides since the start of the 2022-23 season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We cannot allow either outcome to repeat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time of writing, we sit atop the league after seven games. By kick-off late Saturday afternoon, Bournemouth and Man City could have dislodged us. Liverpool and the neighbours play on Sunday. Three points will keep them all below the salt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I doubt it will be a high-scoring game and Fulham are resilient at home, but a stroll by the Thames to a routine 2-0 win for the Arsenal would be the thing, with Gy\u00f6keres scoring. His record against Fulham is played two, won two, scored three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy the game, ‘holics, near and far,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And so to Craven Cottage, the throw-back Thames-side home of our hosts for Saturday’s ultimate Premier League game of the day. Fulham will have resided there for 130 years come next year \u2014 and the ground came close to being our home, too, in the 1910s. There is a bare-bones version of the story on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12082"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12082"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12093,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12082\/revisions\/12093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}