Manchester City v Fulham – The Opposition

Manchester City welcome Fulham to the Etihad Stadium as they look to build on last weekend’s 5-0 thrashing of Burnley, and close the gap on the teams above them in the process.

Fulham arrive in Manchester for the first time in the Premier League since September 2018, when the blues ran out 3-0 winners, although the two did meet in last season’s FA Cup third round, with City comfortably winning 4-0.

Saturday’s visitors have not had the best of starts on their return to the Premier League. From 15 games, The Cottagers have won just two and sit in 17^th place with 7 points, just one point more than West Brom who sit in the relegation zone.

Fulham lost five of their six opening matches, with their only point coming in a 1-1 draw with Sheffield United at Bramhall Lane. Their first win cam at the beginning of November, courtesy of a 2-0 victory over fellow new boys West Brom. After losing the following two matches, Fulham then recorded an impressive 2-1 win at Leicester.

Fulham have scored 11 goals so far this season, with their goal ratio standing at 1.1 per game, however they have failed to score on four occasions. Defensively, the Cottagers have conceded 19 so far, an average of 1.3 goals per game and have only kept on clean sheet in the league this season.

Top scorer for Fulham is Bobby De Cordova-Reid, who has scored four goals in elven appearances, and is scoring goals at a rate of 0.5 per 90 minutes. Next is Alexander Mitrovic with three goals. He has had the most shots for Fulham with 28, but his scoring ratio is just 11%.

Mitrovic fares slightly better with assists, providing two from twelve games, however the honour of midfield kingpin goes to Tom Cairney, who has completed 548 of his 589 passes, giving him a pass accuracy rate of 93%.

Will this be enough to outfox the City midfield on Saturday?