Fulham kicked off their three-match run against newly promoted sides in deflating fashion on Saturday.
A late defeat to Ipswich Town left most Fantasy managers who backed the Cottagers for their favourable-on-paper fixture swing empty-handed.
The loss also left Alvaro Arbeloa’s side in 20th place, and surely needing six points from their next two meetings against Hull City and Coventry City.
Here are our Scout Notes from Portman Road.
GARCIA + FULHAM WASTEFUL
It wasn’t a great spectacle on Saturday but Fulham probably edged it for the most part, and certainly on chances. It was 13-11 to the Cottagers for shots, and 1.81-1.12 on the xG front.
Gonzalo Garcia (£6.1m), one of the most-bought players of Gameweek 6 with over 500,000 transfers in, frustrated. Not for the first time this season, he got into some excellent positions, but failed to capitalise. Lashing a little wildly at one first-half attempt, worse was to follow in the second half when he somehow failed to find the net from this shot:
Garcia is now FPL’s most underachieving player in terms of non-penalty xG (see below):
A poor/raw finisher struggling to adapt to regular senior football, or encouraging that he’s finding space to get chances in the first place? There’s little historical evidence to go off given his inexperience (he slightly outdid his xG with Real Madrid last year, but was mostly a sub), so anyone backing Garcia for the next two six-pointers is going with a fixture-based ‘hit and hope’ rather than trusting proven striking quality.
KING LEFT FRUSTRATED + IPSWICH STRIKE LATE
Oscar Bobb (£5.5m) should have scored, too, with one careless slash at the ball from 12 yards out, while Kevin (£5.3m) was denied by a superb Christian Walton (£4.4m) save late on.
Joshua King‘s (£5.5m) 380k+ new owners were left miffed; it was the attacking midfielder who teed up the big chances of both Garcia and Bobb.
In contrast, Ipswich’s only real decent opening in the first 85 minutes was a close-range Emersonn (£5.6m) header that struck the upright. Julio Enciso (£5.5m), who set up that opportunity, also curled narrowly wide from further out.
Two superb strikes from distance by full-backs spoiled the clean sheets. Ryan Sessegnon (£4.3m) let fly to break the deadlock, while Abdoul Ouattara (£4.0m), who was arguably man of the match, equalised in superb fashion. His promotion to the starting XI has been a big success, and it spells ongoing bad news for Jacob Greaves (£3.9m), who has been shunted to the bench due to a redeployment of Dara O’Shea (£4.0m) from right-back to centre-back.
Speaking of O’Shea, it was the versatile defender who popped up with the winner from a set piece.
UNFORTUNATE – OR SELF-INFLICTED?
So, were Fulham a little unlucky to lose? A little, but the finger of blame was swiftly being pointed at Alvaro Arbeloa after full-time. Some baffling subs – including taking central midfielder Shea Charles (£5.0m) off, handing the slight, inexperienced Manuel Angel (£5.0m) a league debut, and going 4-4-2, all at 1-0 up – were made to look questionable.
Arbeloa is new to this Premier League lark, and relatively new to management, too. He knows that he’ll be judged by the next two results; lose the next one and he may not even get a chance to face Coventry.
You do wonder how different the narrative would have been had Ouattara not scored a screamer. The Cottagers had been much better in Gameweeks 4 and 5, grinding out draws with Liverpool and Man Utd. While they were not brilliant in Suffolk, they may well have gone and eked out a win had Ouattara’s 0.02-xG effort sailed into the Thames and not Bernd Leno‘s (£4.5m) net.
AFFENGRUBER KEEPS UP 100% DEFCON RECORD
David Affengruber‘s (£4.5m) owners were looking at a double-digit haul with minutes to go, but the two goal concessions spoiled that. It was the centre-back, otherwise impressive in his Fulham game-time to date, who gave away the free-kick and lost O’Shea for the winner.
He did, at least, keep up his 100% record of delivering DefCon points when starting. Calvin Bassey (£4.5m), by contrast, reached the threshold for the first time in 2026/27.
O’Shea agonisingly fell one contribution short for the third straight Gameweek!
The match-winner’s attack-minded teammate and fellow £4.0m defender, Leif Davis, failed to have a shot in the box for the first time since Gameweek 1. He was largely well-handled, although he did still amass four penalty area touches – only Daizen Maeda (£5.3m) had more at Portman Road.
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