Embracing their nasty side might just keep Fulham in the Premier League

Having only lost one of their first five fixtures as well as being more than competitive in every single contest, followers of Fulham could hardly have hoped for a more successful return to life in the Premier League.

Tuesday night’s 2-1 win against Brighton briefly lifted Marco Silva’s side into the European qualification places and was yet another display that encapsulated the combination of Silva’s tactical acumen along with desire and commitment in abundance that has typified Fulham’s performances so far this season.

Despite enjoying less than 40% ball possession over the 90 minutes at Craven Cottage, Fulham largely kept Graham Potter’s impressive, unbeaten Seagulls at arm’s length and were once again helped to victory thanks to important contributions from impressive summer signings and the irrepressible Aleksandar Mitrović.

Suggestions that the Serbian was incapable of producing the goalscoring goods in the top flight now seem ludicrous rather than harsh, and it was not just his fifth league goal of the season in midweek that underlined his value to this current Fulham team.

Mitrović was once again at his brutish best in an attacking sense, winning 11 of his 17 duels as he proved a constant irritation for Brighton central defenders Adam Webster and Lewis Dunk and provided an effective focal point to start Fulham attacks. An accurate sliding finish to open the scoring in the 48th minute with what was his 100th league goal for the club was the icing on the cake.

However, he was also noticeably effective defensively – something that has not always been apparent during the forward’s time in west London.

Silva’s strategy without the ball of having his team set up in a 4-4-2 shape with Andreas Pereira joining Mitrović to help press opposition defenders. This has meant that Fulham’s talisman essentially has less ground to cover out of possession, and has allowed him to focus on targeting individual opposition players. This has been exemplified by his 1.6 tackles per 90 so far this season – almost double his best average across a season for his current employers.

Last season’s Championship Golden Boot winner also regularly dropped into deeper positions to plug gaps in midfield and helped to disrupt long spells of Brighton possession on several occasions.

“Unbelievable. He (Mitrović) was unbelievable. I told him at the end of the match.

“He will keep scoring if you keep delivering for him, if you keep playing he will score goals, I don’t have doubts about it.

“But he was unbelievable, he was everywhere, even some moments in positions that I would see sometimes too low (down the pitch).

“He is completely connected with the team and the team with him. I don’t like to speak about individual players because we are much more than one or two players, everyone is on the same page, but he deserves all the words.”

– Fulham head coach Marco Silva

The development of Mitrović’s game has arguably happened hand-in-hand with a greater willingness for Silva’s side to be proficient at the less glamorous elements of life in the Premier League than previous Fulham sides were.

A great deal of Fulham’s success in recent Championship campaigns has been based around what they have managed to do with the ball.

When they won the play-offs in 2018, they averaged 57.6% possession over the season – the highest total of any team in the league that season. And when they achieved the same feat in 2020 under the management of Scott Parker the figure had risen to 58.1%.

Silva’s Fulham were similarly keen to retain the ball, winning the second tier title last season with a possession average of 60.7%, yet it is the way they have been able to adapt to the step up to the Premier League that has so far set them apart from the struggles of previous campaigns.

Fulham have seen less of the ball than their opponent in all five of their games so far this season, with their largest share being 44% in the 3-2 win against Brentford in the third week of the campaign. By contrast, Parker’s Fulham only lost the possession battle on 16 occasions in the 2020/21 season as they finished 11 points from safety.

That Fulham side proved to be far too passive both with and without the ball to challenge competitively in the Premier League. They were effectively too ‘nice’ to produce a genuine fight for survival. It is therefore somewhat fitting that the Cottagers’ most recent tenacious top flight display came on the same day that Parker left his role as Bournemouth head coach.

No individual embodies Fulham’s newfound comfort without the ball quite like new arrival João Palhinha. The Portugal international currently leads the Premier League for tackles, and was a disruptive presence once more against Brighton as he won nine ground duels – only Mitrović (11) won more.

More often than not, the summer signing from Sporting is able to halt opposition attacks by fair means, but the willingness of Palhinha and his new team-mates to stop opponents by any means necessary is noticeable.

Fulham’s current average of 12.4 fouls per 90 is the sixth-highest total in the Premier League, and Palhinha, Pereira and Kenny Tete currently sit within the top 20 in terms of individual players who have committed the most fouls in the league.

Whilst the act of fouling opponents in itself is not directly beneficial within matches, it does seem somewhat representative of a Fulham approach that places great emphasis on being aggressive without the ball.

Whilst it remains too early in the season to be definitive about whether Fulham can continue to play with the type of controlled aggression that has characterised their first five performances of the season, having eight points on the board already means that they have already secured over 20% of the points total they achieved in the entirety of their last stint in the Premier League.

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