It is cup final weekend in England but that doesn’t mean that the Premier League stops and another round of action begins on Friday night when high flying Fulham take on Wolverhampton Wanderers at Craven Cottage.
You sense this is a bigger match for the visitors than the hosts but the longer Fulham can remain in or around the top six the more they will begin to dream of European football and a win here can enhance those hopes.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Premier League channels with the build-up beginning at 7pm and the match kicking off at 8pm.
Fulham
This has been a brilliant season for Fulham whatever happens from here. Whenever a team gets promoted back to the Premier League the immediate aim is to stay there and the Londoners have achieved that aim with 14 matches to spare. Now the season is all about exactly what they can get out of it and were they to qualify for Europe, which isn’t a done deal but is certainly in their own hands, then they can probably skip a year or two forward in their long-term plans.
Earlier in the season, Fulham were conceding plenty of goals but that has changed in recent times. They have only conceded three goals in their last seven matches and while a lot of that is down to the form of their goalkeeper Bernd Leno, that still shows the improvement they have made in that area. They haven’t maintained their high standards in front of goal in that time but an injury to Aleksandar Mitrovic hasn’t helped with that.
Wolverhampton Wanderers
It looked like Wolverhampton Wanderers were on their way to escaping the relegation picture and being able to enjoy the rest of their season when they won at Southampton a couple of weeks ago but those plans grinded to a pretty quick halt when they slipped up against Bournemouth last week. A win here will have Wolves back on an upward trajectory but if they come up short here it will open the door for them to be sucked back in again.
Wolves have won four of their last eight matches which doesn’t sound great but from the position they were in before Julen Lopetegui arrived that represents a marked improvement. The big thing for this Wolves side is there are more goals in them under the Spaniard, even if that has at times come at the detriment to their defensive record. A win here will put six points between them and the bottom three which would be a comfortable cushion to build from.
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Team News
Fulham boss Marco Silva has confessed that leksandar Mitrovic is likely to miss this match because of a hamstring problem. Tom Cairney and Neeskans Kebano are two men the Fulham manager will not be able to call upon.
Wolverhampton Wanderers boss Julen Lopetegui has midfielder Mario Lemina back from suspension to provide another option in the middle of the park. Hwang Hee-chan and Boubacar Traore aren’t quite over their injuries in time for the match.
Betting
This feels like a really competitive game of football and not necessarily the easiest one to bet on. There is a sense in my mind that at some point the Fulham form will fade but then they go and win at Brighton last week which although slightly fortunate, was still a brilliant result. I’m not convinced Wolves have completely turned a corner but they have a world class coach and I’m always reluctant to take those on in these sorts of matches.
I will go with one bet and that comes in the form of over 3.5 cards. These are two very aggressive teams with combative midfielders and I expect the midfield battle to be extremely keenly fought. There were six yellow cards in the reverse meeting between these two sides and we’ve seen the pair of them grace the refereeing notebook on regular occasion in recent times. Wolves had that nonsense issue at Southampton where players were getting booked for moving in the direction of the referee while Fulham picked up five bookings at Brighton last week. Both teams have some serial card collectors and there are enough flair players on the pitch to commit players. This looks like a match in which Michael Oliver will be a busy man.
Tips
Back Over 3.5 cards for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with Betfair
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