OfficialsReferee: Andy MadleyAssistants: Dan Cook, Derek EatonFourth official: Tony HarringtonVAR: Stuart Attwell Assistant VAR: Gary BeswickIt's my privilege to kick-off the first pre-match thread of the 2022/2023 campaign. Congratulations for winning the first trophy of the year and let's have an ever better season than the last one. I'd like to see us win the league again this year but to do so, we will need to stop drawing so many games.Our first game of this season is away in London at Craven Cottage. The ground holds about 25,700 (Wikipedia says 22,384) which is, I think, the third smallest this season. There is some work being done that will take it up to 29,600 but this won't be finished until next season which probably means that the capacity for this season will be under 20,000 (anyone have an update on this?). Above is an artist's impression of what the ground will look like.I looked up their season ticket prices and new prices range from £460 to over £1,000. The top end seems a lot of money to pay for a yo-yo team. They were in the top division two seasons ago and dropped down to the Championship last season but bounced back winning the league.Their top rated players are probably Palhinha, Mitrović, Solomon, Pereira and of course, Harry Wilson. A decent first team but nothing to worry us when we are in top form.Their squad is valued at about £160M against our £780M; that's quite an imbalance and reflects how much better our squad is. I guess their aim is to try to avoid relegation and then to slowly build. The great danger for them would be to over-spend and get into financial problems.My assessment is that they haven't improved from last year and I expect them to be in and around the relegation places again. One of the threads on one of their forums is about how many points they will need to stay up so they aren't that confident either.Everyone should know that we have brought in Núñez, Carvalho and Ramsey and that Carvalho was bought from Fulham (does that mean that he won't be playing?).We have sold Mane, Williams, Minamino, Grujic and the legend who is Origi.Mane was one of my favourite players and I was sad to see him leave. However Nüñez and Carvalho are two exciting players who I'm looking forward to seeing.Diaz and, of course, Salah are going to continue where they left off last season.On the injury front, we have Oxlade-Chamberlain and Jota with ongoing injuries. Alisson, Kelleher, Tsimikas and Ramsay all had knocks and therefore haven't had any recent matches. Konate may have picked up a minor knock yesterday. Hopefully most or all of these injuries will have cleared up by the weekend although Ox and, maybe, Jota are the main doubts. It's nice to see Harvey Elliott back in contention.Fulham tend to be a passing team with a lot of possession and their formation is 4-2-3-1. However I don't expect them to have much of the ball against us and the difference in class should tell. Upsets do happen but I don't see anything other than a comfortable win for us. However, a couple of seasons ago, they drew with us at Craven Cottage and beat us 1-0 at Anfield. We do tend to have a slight weakness against some of the teams that we expect to beat and do draw too often when we should win. As I said, that is something we need to restrict to a minimum if we are going to challenge for the league. We will need to treat this game seriously (I have no doubt that we will) as Fulham will be fighting for every point.Although our pre-season was a bit mixed, Salah, Thiago, Diaz, Firmino and Nunez all looked sharp. We did look pretty good against City and deserved to win.Starting lineup?AlissonTAA. Matip VVD Robertson Henderson Fabinho Thiago Diaz Firmino SalahSubs to play: Keita, Nunez, Elliott + 2 moreI think we'll win 4-0.I'm going to cut this pre-match post short as I know we are all ready to talk about the coming season. Sorry I had planned to put more content into this post but I reckon that keeping it short would be better.So over to you guys to talk about the game and the season ahead.Football is back and so is this guy....PS: We have another game against Aston Villa on Sunday (yes the next day) just to give some of the players some game time.
We've been really sloppy with our passing in the first 7min, just not as sharp and controlled as we should be,
Agree. Can only get better
11 The refereeing continues incredibly badly, our players is knocked over but the ref ignores it as Fulham move forward again.
16 A nasty tackle on Diaz which the referee ignores, but we are starting to find some rhythm.
He called the player back and gave him a Yellow to be fair.
32 Fulham have scored, although the game should have been stopped after Hendo had his ankle stepped on. Mitrovic has scored. 1-0