After a summer of protracted negotiations, Fulham have completed the signing of Serbian striker Aleksandar Mitrovic from Newcastle United.
The forward has signed a five-year deal with the Cottagers, having spent the second half of last season on loan with the west London side.
Mitrovic scored 12 goals in 17 Championship appearances for his new club in 2017/18 and started all three of Fulham’s play-off matches.
The move will set the Cottagers back a reported £22m initially, though that fee could rise to £27m with various add-ons.
Fantasy Premier League have priced Mitrovic up at £6.5m, at the top end of what we could realistically expect to pay for a forward playing for a newly promoted club.
The 23-year-old target-man shares the same starting price as midfielder Ryan Sessegnon, although Andre Schurrle – another of Slavisa Jokanovic’s summer signings – is available for £0.5m less.
Those three players appear likely to form the attacking trio in Jokanovic’s 4-3-3 set-up, although Sessegnon has been fielded at left-back on occasion during pre-season.
Upon signing for Fulham, Mitrovic said:
I told my agent, my brother and my family, that this is the only club I want to join. We didn’t even talk. Especially after the World Cup there were a few clubs interested, but my target was to play here – my heart wanted to come here, to play here, and to continue where we stopped. I didn’t talk to other clubs, I know that I want to be here.
The History
Born in the city of Smederevo in September 1994, Mitrovic spent his youth career with Partizan Belgrade before making his senior debut with their affiliated club FK Teleoptik in August 2011. In a sign of things to come, Mitrovic was sent off for collecting two yellow cards in his first game.
Having scored on seven occasions in 25 appearances for the Serbian second-tier side, Mitrovic signed a professional contract with Partizan at the age of 17.
The teenage striker scored ten league goals and registered three assists in his debut season for the Serbian giants, appearing on 25 occasions in the SuperLiga. The 2012/13 campaign also saw Mitrovic taste European football for the first time, featuring in the UEFA Champions League qualification rounds and then the Europa League.
The Europa League group stage match against Neftchi in Baku was also the first time we saw Mitrovic at his volatile worst, with the Serbian striker being dismissed for violent conduct after scoring Partizan’s equalising goal in a 1-1 draw.
Anderlecht snapped the-then 18-year-old Mitrovic up in August 2013, with the Serbian international going on to score 36 goals in 67 league appearances for the Belgian side. Mitrovic also saw red on two occasions in his debut Jupiler Pro League season, both dismissals for acts of violent conduct in matches against Club Brugge.
Mitrovic made a £14.5m move to Newcastle in July 2015, receiving a yellow card after just 22 seconds of his league debut and then being dismissed in his first home start in the 1-0 defeat to Arsenal.
Although the Magpies were relegated at the end of the 2015/16 season, the campaign was Mitrovic’s most productive in a black-and-white shirt. Appearing in 34 league matches for Newcastle, Mitrovic scored on nine occasions and set up a further four goals. A regular starter under Steve McClaren, the Serbian forward’s fortunes at Newcastle changed with the appointment of Rafael Benitez in March 2016. In the starting XI on only two occasions in the final eight league fixtures of United’s ill-fated season, Mitrovic was to be a peripheral figure in Newcastle’s promotion-winning campaign of 2016/17.
Sitting out the Magpies’ first four Championship matches through suspension (the Serb having been dismissed in the final-day win over Spurs), Mitrovic was to play second fiddle to Dwight Gayle throughout the campaign. Making just 11 starts and appearing as a substitute on a further 14 occasions, Mitrovic found the back of the net on only four occasions in the English second tier.
Overlooked by Benitez at the start of last season (Mitrovic’s Premier League contributions amounted to six substitute appearances and one goal), the Serbian striker joined Fulham in February of this year and made a telling contribution to the Cottagers’ promotion push. All 12 of Mitrovic’s goals for Jokanovic’s side came in a 13-match spell between mid-February and the end of April.
The Prospects
It is difficult to predict what we will see from Mitrovic this year. While the Serbian’s form at the end of 2017/18 was eye-catching, consideration has to be given to the fact that his dozen goals for Fulham were at Championship level.
Similarly, while we can rush to judgement about his so-so record at Newcastle, it has to be noted that Mitrovic never really featured in Benitez’s plans, with the Spaniard preferring the hustle of Gayle and Joselu over the Serbian forward’s raw physical presence.
Mitrovic’s underlying attacking statistics in his time at Craven Cottage so far are impressive.
The Serbian striker averaged more shots per appearance (four) than any Championship player in 2017/18, registering an attempt on goal once every 20.3 minutes. Harry Kane (16.3) was the only first-team striker to better that average in the Premier League this season.
No Fulham player had more shots on target (29) than Mitrovic last season, despite their new number nine featuring in only 17 Championship matches. Mitrovic’s overall total of 68 attempts on goal was only bettered by Stefan Johansen (80) – who played almost three times as many minutes – among Jokanovic’s squad, meanwhile.
Mitrovic also created 18 chances for his team-mates at a rate of one every 77 minutes.
Prospective owners of Mitrovic in FPL will be encouraged by Fulham’s chance creation rate as a whole: Brentford and Norwich were the only sides to make more key passes than Fulham (10.6 on average) per game last season. The Cottagers also had the highest average possession percentage (57.6%) among all Championship clubs.
Stefan Johansen (£5.5m) ranked fifth in the Championship for individual key passes (92), while Tom Cairney‘s (£5.0m) rate of 0.3 through balls per appearance was second only to Brentford’s Romaine Sawyers in the division.
Although Fulham had to come through the play-offs to seal promotion back to the top flight, they are the form side among the newly promoted trio of clubs. In the second half of the 2017/18 campaign, Fulham racked up ten more points and scored more goals (50) than any other Championship side. The Cottagers’ last home defeat came in late-October.
All of which suggests that Mitrovic should be presented with plenty of chances as the spearhead of the Fulham attack this season.
A lot of opportunities came Mitrovic’s way in the summer too: the Serbian striker had 14 attempts on goal for his country, the same number as top goalscorer Harry Kane, but found the back of the net only once.
All 14 of Mitrovic’s efforts at the World Cup were from inside the opposition box, while no forward had more headed chances in Russia than Fulham’s new signing.
With home matches against Crystal Palace, Burnley and Watford to come in the first six Gameweeks, there will be plenty of Fantasy interest in Fulham assets at the beginning of the season. Sessegnon, indeed, has an ownership of 12% while Schurrle features in just over 5% of squads despite only signing for the club last week.
With Sessegnon not guaranteed to start on the left wing (the youngster could possibly line up at left-back) and Schurrle arriving at Craven Cottage off the back of two underwhelming, injury-hit seasons at Borussia Dortmund, there will be keen interest in Mitrovic as an alternative route into the Fulham attack.
The sticking point is his price. At £6.5m, Mitrovic is a whole one million more expensive than the likes of Raul Jimenez and Bobby Reid (both £5.5m) at fellow new-boys Wolves and Cardiff City. With established Premier League goalscorers such as Josh King, Chris Wood and Glenn Murray also available in the £6.5m bracket, Fantasy managers could be forgiven for turning their attention elsewhere.
Mitrovic’s disciplinary record gives some cause for concern, meanwhile: the forward, who is still only 23, has seen red on six occasions and was retrospectively punished for an elbow on Manuel Lanzini in September 2017.
Nine Premier League goals in 2015/16, however, demonstrated that Mitrovic has the potential to flourish as a mid-price forward in FPL, even in a struggling side. Mitrovic’s minutes-per-chance rate in Newcastle’s relegation season was an impressive 26.5, the fifth-best among top-flight forwards with 30+ appearances to their name.
Mitrovic’s first pre-season action came last night with a half-hour run-out against Sampdoria. The Serb’s level of involvement in Saturday’s home friendly against Celta should provide further clues as to whether he is match-fit enough to feature in the Gameweek 1 fixture against Crystal Palace.
One final addendum: Mitrovic’s arrival means that Aboubakar Kamara, currently the most popular FPL forward under £7.0m, is now likely to be an impact substitute/injury cover at best this season. Given that the Frenchman is £4.5m bench fodder for the majority of his owners anyway, that knock-on effect will be largely immaterial.
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