This season has certainly not started as expected for Fulham. After winning the Championship playoff final and spending over 70 million pounds in the summer transfer window, the London club were expecting to challenge for a top 10 finish. Instead, just 12 weeks into the season, they find themselves at the bottom of the table and in the midst of a genuine relegation fight.
Fulham are currently off to a worse start than they managed in the 2013/14 season, which ended with relegation. Not only does the modern iteration have half as many points, but they are also on pace to post the worst defensive record ever in a 38-match Premier League season. Because of this, Slavisa Jokanovic has been sacked and replaced by former title-winning Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri.
With Jokanovic gone, so goes his 4-3-3 formation in which Fulham have scored 10 of their 11 goals this season. Now, Ranieri will take the reins and see if the club can perform better in his trusty 4-4-2 setup. While this change could negatively impact some Fulham players, it seems it should definitely improve the performances of Andre Schurrle (M2) and Ryan Sessegnon (M3).
Schurrle has obviously been the better of the two thus far, having already scored four goals this season. This is no outlier, either, as the German midfielder ranks top five in total shots in the league. While impressive, it has also proven him to be very goal dependent in the ESPN game as he's failed to post a double-digit points tally in any match in which he has not scored. In fact, over 60 percent of his points this season have come from shooting categories, as there has been a profound and surprising absence of creativity from his game. He is currently posting his worst chances created and assist numbers per 90 minutes over the past three seasons, and he is in the middle of a five-match stretch in which he's failed to register a single created chance. It's unlikely that Schurrle would have kept struggling creatively anyway, but now even more so as Ranieri's 4-4-2 heavily depends on its playmakers out on the wing.
In Leicester's title-winning campaign, Riyad Mahrez and Marc Albrighton were the two wing players that played the most often and they were first and third at the club with 11 and 6 assists respectively. So, if the wide players most benefit from Ranieri's system, imagine how much Ryan Sessegnon could improve.
Sessegnon was a sensation in England last season scoring just one fewer goal (16) than his age (17) en route to promotion for Fulham and a deserved nomination for the PFA Young Player of the Year award. Naturally, many viewed him as a fascinating fantasy prospect heading into the season, but we certainly haven't seen much from him thus far. To date, he's managed just one goal and assist, putting him on pace for just six contributed goals this season, or 15 shy of his 2017-18 total. This is not just some wild regression, but it is also due to the fact that Fulham build a league-low 33 percent of their attacks from the left. Fortunately, this will almost certainly change now as, under Ranieri, play often ran through Albrighton out left where he posted the most crosses from open play in the Premier League in their 2015-16 campaign with 171. If Sessegnon gets anywhere near that kind of workload, he should easily launch to the top of the third midfield tier.
In central midfield, things are a little more complicated for Jean Michael Seri. Just a year on from interest being shown by the likes of Barcelona and Liverpool, Seri has shown glimpses of the talent that drew interest from some of Europe's biggest clubs. He currently leads Fulham in chances created and passes and sits in the top 15 in the league in both. Naturally, this gives him a relatively high floor in the ESPN game and makes him the least goal-dependent of all of their midfielders. How he fits into a midfield two remains to be seen, however, as Seri has predominantly played in a three-man midfield ever since his move to Nice in 2015. While not a direct analog for either N'Golo Kante or Danny Drinkwater, the success both of them managed under Ranieri would imply potential success for Seri, but it may come down to who his partner is and how well they play.
Someone who will certainly not appreciate the managerial switch is Aleksandar Mitrovic. He moved to Fulham to work under his personal hero Slavisa Jokanovic on loan last January, and it worked to the tune of 12 goals in 17 Championship starts. Having had all that time to bed in, the Serbian striker made his move to Fulham permanent over the summer and his start to the Premier League season caught everyone's eye.
After Matchweek 6, Mitrovic was leading the league in both goals and shots on target ... and then something went wrong. Since then, Mitrovic's form has plummeted with the forward failing to score a single goal while putting a measly two shots on target. Even with this massive fall off, he is still top five in the second forward tier (which shows just how incredible he was early on). It's hard to say whether being paired with Luciano Vietto up top in a strike partnership will benefit Mitrovic or not but, regardless, he can't be as bad as he's been in recent weeks.
Speaking of poor performances, this Fulham defense has been, as mentioned earlier, truly awful. Fortunately, defenders are punished for neither goals allowed nor awarded clean sheet points in our game, which is how Maxime Le Marchand has proven to be a decent asset at times. He arrived at the club from Nice in a double deal with Seri and, like his former and current teammate, he's done well in the defensive categories of our game, ranking first in both tackles and interceptions at the club. He's not a goal threat as he's only scored eight goals in his entire senior career, but he has managed three point totals in the double digits this season and with the overall defense set to improve, he could eventually become a viable option in his tier (D2).
The same certainly can not be said for keeper Marcus Bettinelli, however. You know all of those statistics that don't hurt defenders value, like goals allowed and failing to keep clean sheets? Well, they certainly do hurt Fulham's goalkeepers. This is clearly evidenced by Bettinelli who is currently the only player in our game to have a negative points per game average. Even among the keepers at his own club, he has been the worst of the bunch, allowing nearly three goals a game. Having not played in the last three matches, it seems he has lost his starting job to Sergio Rico, but it's safe to say that no matter who the Fulham keeper is, you don't want him on your fantasy team.
On the whole, the kind of form shown by Fulham and some of their key players makes it understandable that the club have switched managers, but that does not mean there is a lack of talent or fantasy value at the club. It obviously remains to be seen how Ranieri intends on getting the most out of his players, but the good news for both Fulham fans and fantasy players is that things can only get better from here.