EFL Championship 2019/20: Fulham vs Middlesbrough

Jonathan Woodgate’s resurgent Middlesbrough side returned to the capital after playing ex-side Tottenham on Tuesday this Friday night for a game under the lights at Craven Cottage. Another ex-player turned head coach in Scott Parker is aiming to guide Fulham back to the Premier League immediately. A win here for the Cottagers would take them up to third and just four points off the automatic promotion places ahead of the Saturday kick-offs.

Woodgate’s first few months could be described as shaky, with many Boro fans calling for him to go and the homegrown project to be scrapped. However, since the November international break, form has drastically picked up with the Teesside club now sitting 10 points above the relegation zone, alleviating fears of a battle with the drop and Woodgate getting the sack.

In this tactical analysis, we shall look at the tactics deployed by Fulham and Middlesbrough in this EFL Championship clash and we’ll use analysis to see why Fulham got the win.

Line-ups

In the 80^th minute last week away at Hull City, the moment Fulham fans were dreading had occurred. Aleksandar Mitrović was taken off injured with an ankle ligament problem, seeing the Serbian now away from action for three weeks. For this Friday night clash fan favourite Tom Cairney returned to central midfield, seeing Bobby Reid move up the field into the position of lone striker. Attacking left-back Joe Bryan also came in in place of Cyrus Christie, resulting in Denis Odoi switching sides to go to right-back.

Woodgate made two changes to the team that drew 2-2 with Derby County last time out in the EFL Championship. 6’3” target man Rudy Gestede replaced Ashley Fletcher while Adam Clayton took the place of Lewis Wing. The two youthful wing-backs Hayden Coulson and Djed Spence have both emerged from the academy this season to cement their places as first-team starters, and they continued that trend this game.

Fulham expose Boro’s right-hand side

When playing a 5-2-2-1 formation, as the away side were for this match, there is reduced defensive coverage of the wide areas. Woodgate opted to play Patrick Roberts at right-wing, immediately in front of Spence who was at right-wing-back. Roberts is heavily left-footed and has a preference to cut in on his favoured foot. The problem with this tendency is that it isolates the inexperienced Spence against Ivan Cavaleiro and the venturous Bryan.

In this