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Fulham host Wolves at Craven Cottage this Saturday as they look to maintain their solid start to the campaign.
Marco Silva’s side are 7th in the league going into this weekend’s round of fixtures and sit just 1 point behind 3rd placed Chelsea in what has been a highly impressive opening 11 matches for the west London outfit.
Wolves on the other hand find themselves at the opposite end of the table, submerged down in 19th with just 1 win from their 11 games so far. Despite claiming their first win of the campaign prior to the international break with a 2-0 victory against Southampton at Molineux, Gary O’Neil’s men have only gained 6 points from a possible 33 available and are currently 2 points behind 17th-placed Ipswich and safety.
O’Neil’s team are 1 of only 4 in the PL who are yet to taste victory away from home, having amassed only 2 points from their 5 away matches so far. The West Midlands outfit have the joint 3rd-worst away defensive record to boot, conceding 13 goals in the process.
Wolves are yet to keep a clean sheet away from home and have only managed 1 shutout all season, which came against Palace last time out. They have conceded a league-high 27 goals, 5 more than the joint 2nd highest in Brentford and Ipswich. Defensively, they have been vulnerable and exposed all campaign.
Fulham have been praised so far this term for not only gaining results, but doing so by entertaining and ‘easy on the eye’ football. Silva’s side have scored in all 5 home matches so far and have only failed to score in 1 game all season, which was the opening weekend defeat at Manchester United.
In Raul Jimenez, they have a striker in a rich vein of form, with the Mexican forward scoring in 3 of the last 4 games at Craven Cottage and managing to find the net in 4 of his 8 appearances, a ratio of 1 in 2 overall. The style of football served up in west London this season has certainly made games entertaining. This is particularly true at home, where Silva’s team are yet to keep a clean sheet and I expect this theme to continue come Saturday afternoon.
Even though they moved off the bottom of the PL table at Southampton’s expense, Wolves’ issues have been there for all to see going back to towards the end of the 2023/2024 campaign. Defensively O’Neil’s men have been very fragile, with 27 goals shipped in just 11 matches. They have conceded 2 or more goals in 9 of the 11 games and in 4 of their 5 games away from Molineux, a concern which has haunted them all campaign.
When it comes to the betting markets for the Craven Cottage clash, I’m not going to over complicate matters. As you can probably guess, I’m a big fan of Fulham’s credentials in this match and in general.
They represent value to me with my model spitting out odds of closer to 1/2 as being fair. By the pure numbers at 7/10 best priced with Ladbrokes this rates as a bet. Without doubt, on the eye test, Fulham are purring and should knock off a Wolves side who are likely to finish no better than 14th.
Wolves’ average of conceding almost 3 goals a game on their travels, which fills with me belief that Fulham have enough quality to unlock the shaky rearguard and inflict a 4th defeat in 5 away matches. This would leave Wolves stranded in the relegation zone and Fulham looking at the dizzying heights of the Champions League positions.
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I also think there is a fair (but only fair) bet in the Anytime Goalscorer market with the previously mentioned Raul Jimenez best priced at 33/20 with Unibet to get on the scoresheet against the leaky Wolves defence.
Despite Jimenez being Fulham’s top scorer and also the penalty taker, the Mexican has failed to score in any of his last 3 appearances and has only bagged 1 goal in his last 5 for The Cottagers which is enough to put me off that as a betting proposition.
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