This week’s Monday Night Football sees relegation rivals, Huddersfield Town welcome Fulham to the John Smith Stadium for an early six pointer.
With both teams currently sat in bottom three, this is an early relegation six pointer as Huddersfield look to properly kick-start their season whilst Fulham can move out of drop zone with victory.
Team news
Embed from Getty ImagesHuddersfield could start Terence Kongolo, after the defender recovered from a hamstring injury.
Rajiv van La Parra and Abdelhamid Sabiri are available after recovering from illness whilst Tom Smith is also fit after recovering from a groin injury.
Danny Williams is still a few weeks away from being match fit as he nears full fitness following a knee injury.
Fulham have a full squad available apart from Joe Bryan, who remains out with a thigh injury.
Form
Huddersfield are winless in their last six after taking just one draw and five defeats. The Terriers in fact have kept just one clean sheet all season, coming at home to Cardiff at end of August.
One positive is that Huddersfield have only conceded four goals in last three home games with all coming in first half, and two of those games finished 0-1 to the visitors.
Fulham meanwhile are on a four match losing run, scoring three and conceding 15 goals with 11 of those conceded goals coming in second half whilst their three goals all came before half time.
The Cottagers have also managed to keep just one clean sheet but that came in second round of Carabao Cup against Exeter City, meaning that Fulham are the worst side in any of Europe’s top five leagues with 28 conceded league goals.
Stat Attack
- Huddersfield are winless against Fulham in a 11 match run stretching back to 1994 (D4, L7).
- During that run, Huddersfield scored once in three of last four home clashes with Fulham.
- In 2016-17 season, Fulham ran out 9-1 aggregate winners across both league meetings.
- These sides met in top flight on six previous occasions (1949-52), with Fulham winning three times to Huddersfield’s one whilst there were two draws. Both sides went down together at end of 1951-52 season.
- Eight Fulham players who faced Huddersfield during 2016-17 season remain in the present squad with three of them having scored across last two meetings.
Prediction
Huddersfield are solid if very unspectacular but Fulham’s defence seems to worsen as matches go on, so if Terriers can keep things level at break before cranking things up after half time then I can see them winning this quite comfortably.
Prediction: Huddersfield Town 2-0 Fulham
Jake predicts: Huddersfield Town 1-1 Fulham
Result: Huddersfield Town 1-0 Fulham