An On-Form Nottingham Forest side travelled to the Cottage to face Fulham on Saturday. The teams have only met once in the premier league before, which was earlier this season at the City Ground, resulting in a 3-2 victory for Fulham. There were no changes to the Fulham side that drew against Chelsea but there was one change in the Nottingham Forest side with Gustavo Scarpa replacing Danilo.

Saturdays match ended 2-0 to Fulham with Willian scoring early on and then Manor Solomon sealing the deal with his first Fulham goal in the 88’ minute. This saw Fulham move up into seventh but forest stay in 14th. This puts Fulham onto 35 points , which in the last 6 seasons, is enough for safety.

The match kicked off but after 6 minutes, two forest players (Willy Boly and Scott Mckenna) were subbed off for injury reasons. Fulham looked dominant but allowed a few Forest counterattacks to get through the line. The first goal came when a Pereira free kick was swung in and the forest defenders tried frantically to clear their lines but it fell to Willian, who got past Renan Lodi, who sent it curling into the Top corner, out of reach of Keylor Navas.

A few chances for Fulham to double their lead went begging with Navas being forced into a great save by Mitrovic in the 34’ minute and De Cordova-Reid hitting the bar from Miles out. Willian beat his man and attempted his second worldie of the day but it just didn’t have enough spin to get inside of the post. Nottingham forest’s first and only major chance came in the 68’ minute where a cross from the deadline day signing Jonjo Shelvey was met by Aurier who forced Leno into an Incredible reaction save. The final goal came from Loanee Manor Solomon after a incredibly well place pass by Pereira put him one on one with the keeper and he slotted it home.

this match we also saw the Debuts of the aforementioned Jonjo Shelvy as well as the two fulham players, Sasa lukic from Torino and Cedric Soares on loan for Arsenal. Although these results pushed fulham into the European Qualifying spots, Marco Silva is still Adamant that the idea of Europe is not on his or the player’s minds.

Team Sheets

Fulham Fc: Leno; Robinson, Diop, Ream, Tete(Soares 90+1); Willian(Solomon 72), Palhinha, Pereira(Lukic 90+1), Reed, De Cordova-Reid(Wilson 85); Mitrovic(Vinicius 84’)

Nottingham Forest: Navas; Aurier, Mckenna(Worral 7), Boly(Felipe 7), Lodi; Scarpa(Dennis 56), Mangala(Shelvey 56), Gibbs-White, Freuler, Johnson; Chris Wood(Ayew 63)

Wyn Morgan

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