Fulham vs Southampton: Carabao Cup – Opposition Threats

Southampton will be looking to progress to the third round Carabao Cup this evening, with the Saints drawn away against Fulham in the second round.

Coming off the back of a rather dismal 2018/19 campaign, which saw The Cottagers relegated to the Championship, Scott Parker’s caretaker role at the club has been made permanent, with the board encouraged with the sides performances under his reign since the sacking of Premier League winning manager Claudio Ranieri.

So far this season, Fulham have won three, and lost twice, sitting fifth in the table with nine points.

Delving into the tactics, Fulham have been set up to play a possession style of play, with the Lily Whites lowest possession statistic being 55% in the 2019/20 campaign, and their highest being 84%.

The London based club have come accustom to playing a three pronged attack this season, with the wingers making runs out wide to create width, and the central striker getting himself into the box to get on the end of crosses. With most teams gaining high possession stats from passing it round the back and waiting for an opening, Fulham continuously play progressive passes to put the opposition on the back foot through getting the ball to the wingers and attacking midfielders and running at the defence.

With all this considered, the home sides style of play could suit the Saints. The red and whites counter-pressing style of play targets teams that enjoy having a lot of the ball and prey on the opposition mistakes when in possession – pressing the opponent when a pass been played too short, a player has miss controlled the ball, or if the ball is played into a certain area in the oppositions third where the player on the ball has limited avenues to pass as this acts as a trigger for the Southampton players to press and win the ball back in a dangerous area.

Furthermore, with Fulham committing so many body’s forward, the south coasts pace in attack allows them to counter attack at speed and get the ball into the final third quickly without much threat of losing possession, and at worse will force the Championship outfit to concede a tactical foul to stop the attack.

In addition, the Saints will be coming into the contest with renewed optimism having picked up their first win if the season on the weekend, and will be hoping to carry this on into their first mid-week fixture of the season. Although there is confidence through the side, Southampton boss Ralph Hasenhuttl is likely to rest a lot of key players, with a higher level of importance attached to the match against Manchester United on the weekend.

A similar tale could be told about Fulham, who have their eyes firmly set on gaining promotion back to the top division at the first time of asking, so may want to rest their main players with a difficult match against fellow relegated team Cardiff City on Saturday.

Despite this, Fulham will be a very challenging test for the Saints, with certain players possibly being the difference between progression in the cup, and being knocked out: