Match Day Thread Fulham v Preston North End Craven Cottage 19/4/22

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LAST TIME OUT

FORM GUIDE

Fulham 10 PNE 7

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We have history of ruining a big day for Fulham, putting the Division 3 champiionship trophy on the programme in 1971 was probably a mistake as we beat Fulham and then a couple of days later in front on nearly 30,000 at Deepdale beat Rotherham 3-0

PNE Team News

Emil Riis, who missed the draw against Millwall, has been out on the grass running and will be assessed ahead of Tuesday’s game.

There’s also a decision to be made over Alan Browne, with the skipper having been forced off with a glute injury on Good Friday.

Izzy Brown, Ryan Ledson and Tom Barkhuizen remain sidelined.

The Opposition

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After missing the chance to secure automatic promotion on Good Friday – having lost to Derby County – the Cottagers will get another shot on Tuesday night against North End.

In fact, the job could even be sealed before Ryan Lowe takes his side to the capital, if results elsewhere go their way on Easter Monday.

With Marco Silva in his first campaign in charge of Fulham, it’s been a remarkable season, and at this stage it appears a matter of when not if they will secure promotion back to the Premier League at the first time of asking.

Key Stats

Fulham are comfortably the division’s top scorers, having netted an incredible 95 goals so far this season, 33 more than the second-highest tally in the Championship.

38 of those have come from Serbian striker Aleksandar Mitrovic – to set a new all-time Championship high – and he has scored seven goals in seven games against PNE in his career.

PNE are one of two sides in the division yet to score in the opening 15 minutes of an away fixture this season.

Our Last Meeting



North End earned a point against high-flying Fulham back in November, with striker Ched Evans coming off the bench to score a 72nd-minute equaliser to cancel out Tim Ream’s opener.

Man In The Middle

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Taking charge of just his second ever PNE game this weekend will be Leigh Doughty.

Doughty, who became an EFL referee in 2019, first refereed a North End fixture last November in the home defeat against Cardiff City.

So far this season, he has taken charge of 29 matches, showing 108 yellow cards and four reds.

 

I was at The Cottage that day in 1971. I was student in London. I was stood in a position where I could look down onto the Thames.

 

Declared at half time 3-0

 

Match Report: Fulham 3 PNE 0
17 Hours ago

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@pnefc

Preston North End were beaten 3-0 at Craven Cottage as Fulham secured promotion to the Premier League.

All three of the goals came inside the opening 45 minutes, with a Fabio Carvalho strike in between an Aleksandar Mitrovic brace sealing a spot in the top flight for the league leaders.

It was PNE who started on the front foot, though, almost taking the lead inside six minutes, with Cameron Archer and Daniel Johnson linking up to then find Ched Evans, who saw his close-range shot take a nick off Tosin Adarabioyo and Marek Rodak was able to claw it away.

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The goalkeeper was called into action again just 60 seconds later, this time needing to tip over Ben Whiteman’s deflected long-range strike.

Fulham were the side to open the scoring, though, with Joe Bryan slipping Mitrovic through on goal, and he slotted the ball under Daniel Iversen.

After curling inches wide from the edge of the area, Carvalho got his goal ten minutes after, with Neeskens Kebano’s cross deflecting into the attacker’s path and he lifted the ball into the net.

The hosts had a third before the half was over, as Harry Wilson found Mitrovic who finished clinically to score his 40th of the Championship season.

North End so nearly pulled one back in the opening moments of the second half through Archer, but Rodak stretched himself wide to touch his effort onto the crossbar.

At the other end, Iversen denied Mitrovic his hat-trick, firstly saving one-on-one against the Serbian before a few minutes later needing to keep out his 12-yard effort with an outstretched hand.

PNE came close a couple of times before time was up, with Ben Whiteman coming closest by seeing a free-kick land narrowly over, but it was the hosts who took the points to confirm their passage to the Premier League.

Fulham line-up: Rodak; Williams; Adarabioyo, Ream, Bryan; Cairney, Reed (Seri, 70); Wilson, Carvalho (De Cordova-Reid, 75), Kebano; Mitrovic (Muniz, 77). Subs not used: Gazzaniga, Hector, Chalobah, Robinson.

PNE line-up: Iversen; van den Berg, Lindsay, Hughes; Potts (Sinclair, 69), McCann, Whiteman, Johnson, Earl (Diaby, 45); Evans (Maguire, 25), Archer. Subs not used: Hudson, Cunningham, Rafferty, Huntington.

Attendance: TBC.

Referee: Mr L Doughty.

Fulham head coach Marco Silva:

"All season he (Mitrovic) has been exceptional. I have to manage his condition - you know how he can play with his energy when he is fresh.

"There was a lot of energy from the first minute. We had to get the job done tonight and we need to be proud of what we achieved.

"We delivered to the club and the fans who deserved this. I am proud of the players as this was the goal on the first day - automatic promotion.

"The season has been fantastic for the fans. Last season was really tough for all of them and we have done this for them."

Preston manager Ryan Lowe told BBC Radio Lancashire:

"Congratulations to Fulham. I thought we could have scored in the first five minutes and then maybe the game changes a little bit.

"But you can't give a team like Fulham the opportunities to score that we did - they'll punish you and we found ourselves 3-0 down.

"You only have to look at the star man who scores the goals and that is the difference - they've got that quality.

"I thought we were a lot better second half, but ultimately we were outclassed in the first half."