Fulham v Aston Villa Pre Match Thread.

[Dave]

You're right, but under Marco Silva, Fulham seem to spend whole seasons at a time "on the beach".

Playing perfectly well and calmly, safe in the knowledge that they will definitely finish somewhere between ninth and thirteenth.

[Rigadon]

Fulham are the very definition of mid-table.  It won't be an easy game but I can't see us losing there.  How good a result a draw would be would depend on other results I suppose.

[Ads]

Score first and we should win. There is not a lot of goals in this Fulham side.

[eamonn]

I thought the same about Sunderland!

[DennisHodgetts]

..and you were correct...in the end!

[Dave]

F365

No shade intended here but we suspect, if they could have their time again, TNT might not have selected Fulham v Aston Villa as their Premier League choice this weekend.

With two games that could either settle once and for all or completely reshape the relegation fight – West Ham v Everton and Wolves v Spurs – both remaining Saturday 3pm affairs, we instead get mid-table Fulham taking on an Aston Villa side now thoroughly safe and secure inside the top five and likely to have at least one eye on the upcoming Europa League semi-final against Nottingham Forest.

The only teams outside the top five within even eight points of Villa’s 58 both have only four games left. It’s entirely possible Villa could lose every one of their remaining games and still be fine. They also probably won’t do that anyway.

So yes, it’s a low-key Saturday lunchtime affair by Premier League run-in standards but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing at stake at all.

There remains an England World Cup squad place ready and waiting for any striker to decisively claim it, for one thing, and with three goals in his last three games Ollie Watkins is making a late grab after a mixed season.

[RamboandBruno]

Perfectly reasonable assessment