Boss Marco Silva has hailed his side’s “great achievement” for reaching 42 points - and with it all but guaranteed safety - at such an early stage, as they now look to ruin another struggling side’s day with the visit of Leeds.
A Craven Cottage return may provide a much-needed boost for Fulham, as whilst they’ve lost their last two games here without reply, they were unbeaten in their prior four matches at home with the last of those a 2-0 FA Cup win over Leeds (W2, D2, L2).
They also won the reverse league fixture this season and subsequently now chase their first-ever run of three straight wins over Leeds since their first meeting in 1920.
It was a rather blue Monday for Leeds, as a crushing 6-1 defeat at the hands of Liverpool consigned the Whites to their first-ever consecutive defeats in the league with at least five goals conceded.
Those goals contributed to a shocking return of 16 goals conceded in April, that’s at least eight more than any other Premier League side in the same period and more than they conceded between the beginning of 2023 and the end of March (15)!
Leeds were granted a slight reprieve as all four sides below them lost in the last round, but with just seven games left to play and a slender two-point gap to the dreaded drop zone, Javi Gracia’s men are in for a nail-biting end to the season.
In any case, conceding six goals whilst scoring five themselves across the last two away games suggests that this may be yet another high-energy encounter as Leeds battle for survival.
Players to watch: Fulham will miss the ineligible loanee Daniel James here and may look to Manor Solomon for an outlet. He scored against Leeds in the last home H2H as part of a five-game scoring streak.
Jack Harrison became the first outfield Leeds player to hit 100 top-flight appearances for the club since 2004 on Monday and he could have a say with four goal contributions from his last six games (G3, A1).
Hot stat: Leeds have failed to win the majority of their league games when scoring first (W5, D3, L4).
