Fulham (A): Pre-match thoughts, team news, possible line-ups & prediction

If you could sum this season up in one sentence it would be: "One step forward, two steps back."

And if you could sum this season up in two games, it would be West Ham (H) and Everton (H).

Bobby Robson once said that the issue with his team was that they were consistently inconsistent. Truer words could not be spoken about this season's squad. Still, we find ourselves in the hunt for a European place and a chance to make it seven points out of a possible nine in the last week.

Fulham are a team who find themselves in a spiral of inconsistency too, losing 3-1 to relegation-threatened Forest, drawing with Sheffield United, but beating Brighton and Spurs both 3-0 in their last two home games.

Eddie Howe's Mags have already gone to Craven Cottage and returned victorious once this season - a 2-0 FA Cup win.

But, the Cottagers are a side who the Toon must be wary of and boss Eddie Howe understands the need to put a good run together at this crucial point in the season.

“I see a lot of teams searching for consistency and searching for a run of victories that will catapult them to where they want to be and we’re one of those teams," Howe said. “Everyone is finding that consistency hard to find so it’s up to us to grab that.”

Team News

Lewis Hall has impressed in the last two matches and, despite suffering from fatigue against Everton was back in training today and expected to be in the squad. Kieran Trippier's return to fitness is taking longer than expected.

Callum Wilson is still training despite a pectoral injury. Pope, Almiron, Livramento, Joelinton, Lascelles, Botman all remain on the treatment table.

Meanwhile for Fulham, Marco Silva confirmed that the Londoners would have a full team available for selection. Must be nice!

Predicted line-up: Dubravka; Krafth, Schar, Burn, Hall; Bruno, Longstaff, Anderson; Gordon, Isak, Barnes.

It looks like another makeshift squad. I would expect Anderson to start again after Willock's laboured introduction on Tuesday - he never really got going and Anderson looked much sharper.

Murphy has had a run of a few games without particularly standing out and, after Gordon has returned from his suspension, his injection of energy will be welcomed.

That front three is something to admire, for sure!

Prediction: Fulham 1 - 1 Newcastle

Having come so close with my prediction of a 1-0 win on Tuesday (thanks Dummett...) I am going to say that we will just fall short again of all three points.

Fulham have a goalscoring machine in Muniz at the moment and our makeshift backline can, and will, be exposed. It's not that I lack optimism, it's that I possess realism.

If we play the front three that I predict, then I can see us scoring. Let's just hope it's a bad score prediction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPTD3PfjEds