2026/2027 season

Premier League

Team page
Premier League · Team page
Fulham
Head coach: Álvaro Arbeloa · 4-2-3-1. Vérifié : formation explicitement indiquée par la feuille de match Sky Sports de Fulham - Chelsea (24/08/2026), avec Leno ; Castagne, Bassey (inscrit « C Ughelumba »), Cuenca, Robinson ; Berge, Iwobi ; Bobb, King, Palacios ; Gonzalo García. Même structure à Sunderland le 30/08 (Andersen à la place de Cuenca), mais Sky n'y a pas affiché de schéma nommé.
Rank
16th
Pts
5
P
7
Form
🟡 Average

The essentials at a glance

The summary of this page: estimated level of play, form trend and qualitative verdict. For the details, head to the other tabs.

Editors' ratings
3/10
Attack
6/10
Defence
3/10
Form
3/10
Confidence / mood
Current risk:High

16th with 5 pts from 7 matches: 1 win, 2 draws, 4 defeats.

7 goals scored, 10 conceded.

Hull City manager Sergej Jakirovic says Fulham were "much better" during his side's 1-0 defeat at Craven Cottage.

BBC Sport · 17 Oct 2026

Fulham 1-0 Hully City: Alex Iwobi’s first-half goal gave the Cottagers their first league win of the season

The Independent — Football · 17 Oct 2026

Spanish has not yet won in six Premier League journeys and got into trouble with a pressurized start on Fulham. The main obstacle of the coach is in the difficulty of working with a young squad, despite his experience in La Fábrica.

zerozero · 17 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

The Fulham of Alvaro Arbeloa was imposed for 1-0 to Hull City in Craven Cottage thanks to Alex Iwobi in the first half. The Londoners dominated the party from beginning to end and had opportunities to expand the advantage, but the lack of success and good defense of the Hull kept the uncertainty to the end. & nbsp;

Mundo Deportivo · 17 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

How the team has played recently

Match-by-match results, record and rhythm of the current season.

Latest matches
Wvs Hull City AFC (H) · 1-0
Lvs Ipswich Town FC (A) · 1-2
Dvs Manchester United FC (H) · 1-1
Dvs Liverpool FC (A) · 0-0
Lvs Crystal Palace FC (H) · 2-3
WDDLLLL
7 scored / 10 conceded over 7 matches played
Rest: 1 day since the last match · 2 matches played in the last 15 days
Home form
1W - 1D - 2L
Away form
0W - 1D - 2L
Statistics

Computed from this season's scores, every time the page is shown.

Goals scored per match
1.0
Goals conceded per match
1.2
At home
4 scored · 4 conceded in 3 matches
Away
1 scored · 2 conceded in 2 matches
Over 2.5 goals
2 of 5
Both teams score
3 of 5
Clean sheets
2 of 5
Failed to score
1 of 5
Cumulative points vs league average

Not enough matchdays recorded yet for this curve — history builds up with every standings refresh.

How Fulham play

System, playing identity, and what sets the team apart at both ends of the pitch.

Playing identity
Preferred system
4-2-3-1. Vérifié : formation explicitement indiquée par la feuille de match Sky Sports de Fulham - Chelsea (24/08/2026), avec Leno ; Castagne, Bassey (inscrit « C Ughelumba »), Cuenca, Robinson ; Berge, Iwobi ; Bobb, King, Palacios ; Gonzalo García. Même structure à Sunderland le 30/08 (Andersen à la place de Cuenca), mais Sky n'y a pas affiché de schéma nommé.
Philosophy
Arbeloa lays claim to an unapologetically attacking project that is not negotiable depending on the opponent: after the 2-3 defeat against Chelsea, he stated “If we play like that, we're going to win a lot of games” (Sky Sports, 24/08/2026). Caution: this is a stated intention on the head coach's part, not yet a style statistically established over two matchdays.
Attacking strengths
2 goals in 2 Premier League matchdays (Joshua King 23' and Gonzalo García 54' against Chelsea; no goals at Sunderland) — the league's 16th-best attack as of 30/08. New signing Gonzalo García has scored in two consecutive matches (Chelsea then Wimbledon) and Rodrigo Muniz ended a year-long drought on 27/08 with his first goal since 16/08/2025.
Defensive solidity
4 goals conceded in 2 matchdays, no clean sheet in the league (2-3 against Chelsea, 0-1 at Sunderland); the season's only clean sheet came in the Carabao Cup against AFC Wimbledon (3-0, 27/08). Chelsea had opened the scoring in the 1st minute at Craven Cottage.
Pressing
A low-intensity defensive approach on matchday 3 at Sunderland (30/08/2026): Fulham deliberately let the opponent dominate the ball rather than pressing high, a choice described as follows by the Sunderland Echo: “Fulham showed them the respect their seventh-place finish deserved and challenged them to make most of the running” (Sunderland Echo, 30/08/2026). On matchday 1 against Chelsea, the PPDA recorded for Fulham was 9.88 against 17.46 for Chelsea, a sign of a markedly less aggressive pressing than the opponent's (tacticalfootballanalysis.com, article of 26/08/2026 analysing the match of 24/08/2026). Each of these two elements comes from a single, uncorroborated source, but they converge on the profile of a fairly low, low-intensity block at this early stage of the season.
Transitions
Fulham looked dangerous in attacking transition during the defeat at Sunderland (30/08/2026): Alex Iwobi played Josh King in behind in the first half and then again just before the break, with the team looking threatening “in transition even if chances were still few and far between” (Sunderland Echo, 30/08/2026). Conversely, against Chelsea (24/08/2026), Fulham were not designed to play long (“not set up to go long, quite the opposite”) but the Blues' coordinated pressing forced them into long clearances that led to turnovers (tacticalfootballanalysis.com, 26/08/2026). Two separate sources, not cross-checked against each other, each covering a single match, but converging on an attacking profile geared towards pace in behind rather than long-ball play.
StrengthAn experienced core retained (Leno, Andersen, Robinson, Castagne, Berge, Iwobi), genuine attacking depth (Smith Rowe, Muniz, Gonzalo García, Bobb, Kevin) and ambitious summer recruitment including Gonzalo García, described by Sky Sports as a “big-money summer signing” who has already proved decisive.
WeaknessFragility in the physical battle and on second balls, acknowledged by the head coach himself after Sunderland: “We didn't win any duels. No second balls... we were not at our level” (Sky Sports, 30/08/2026). Attacking output still poor outside the cup and zero points taken in two matchdays.

The mood around the club, and who is missing

Internal climate, relationship with the supporters, and known absences before the next match.

Mood
Squad confidence
The lowest in the group, and the head coach does not hide it. Fulham are the only side to have lost their first two matches without ever looking outplayed, but the numbers from the trip to Sunderland are damning: not a single shot on target in the whole match. Álvaro Arbeloa gave a blunt assessment, explaining that his team had won neither the duels nor the second balls and had not been at their level. VAVEL points out that these are the club's first consecutive defeats since the 2020-21 season. The 3-0 League Cup win against AFC Wimbledon remains the only victory of the Arbeloa era.
Coach / players / board relationship
No source consulted directly documents the state of relations between Álvaro Arbeloa, the board and the dressing room, the change of head coach being too recent. There is one institutional clue, though: Sky Sports believe the new head coach was given players who match precisely his high-pressing philosophy, which implies recruitment conducted with him rather than against him. The club invested heavily in profiles from Real Madrid, Gonzalo García for £34.27m and César Palacios for £8.57m, complemented by Shea Charles for £26m. Sky Sports mark that package 7 out of 10, reserving their doubt for the defence.
Mood with the supporters
Not precisely verified. A supporter's reaction after the 2-3 defeat against Chelsea was published by the BBC (headline noted on 31/08 on the Football Web Pages aggregator), but its content could not be opened and verified; no organised protest movement is reported by the sources consulted.
Pressure on the head coach
Low at this stage despite the blank return, but it can only grow. Álvaro Arbeloa has only just been appointed, has taken charge of three competitive matches and no source consulted raises any question over his position. The context is rather favourable to him, with a window built around his playing philosophy and a board that agreed to invest more than £70m in attacking and midfield signings. The schedule also offers him an immediate opportunity, with a Crystal Palace side also on no points at home. A third defeat at Craven Cottage would, however, change the nature of the questions.
Club objectives
The club has not announced a numerical objective for 2026-27, and the priority has narrowed to the very short term: getting off a pointless start. Sky Sports describe recruitment designed to install the high press Álvaro Arbeloa wants, with Gonzalo García immediately decisive, and mark the window 7 out of 10 while pointing to persistent defensive uncertainty despite David Affengruber's arrival on deadline day. The club remain in the League Cup after qualifying for the third round. Hosting Crystal Palace on 5 September, against opponents also struggling, is the season's first concrete objective.
Recent internal tensions
No tension reported at this stage by the sources consulted. To be noted as an open matter rather than a conflict: Sky Sports ran a headline on 26/08/2026 stating that “Muniz's future” was among the unresolved matters of Fulham's transfer window, and the BBC reported talks for Rayo Vallecano defender Andrei Rațiu (headline noted on 29/08 via Football Web Pages, article not opened).
Absences
InjuredTom Cairney — Knee injury, return estimated for around 17 October.

Before kick-off

What to know before the next match: statistical form, qualitative analysis, and a computed estimate of the 1/X/2 probabilities.

Next match

Coventry City — Fulham

AwaySaturday 24 October at 16:00Matchday 8
In 6 days. Kick-off time confirmed by the league. Paris time · football-data.org fixtures.

Prediction, odds and form of both teams →

What the press says

No preview found for this fixture. The press mostly covers the big games, and usually the day before.

Prediction
EstimateCoventry City — Fulham
34 %
1 · Coventry City
28 %
X · draw
38 %
2 · Fulham
In-house calculation, from this page's standings data alone: 6 matches played by Coventry City, 7 matches by Fulham. Confidence: medium
The formula, in plain words — with this match's figures
  1. League average. 189 goals scored over 130 team-matches played (20 teams taken into account), i.e. μ = 1.45 goal scored per team per match. This is the reference point: everything that follows is expressed relative to it.
  2. Attacking and defensive strengths. Goals scored (or conceded) per match, divided by μ. 1.00 = exactly average; in defence, above 1.00 means “concedes more than average”.
    TeamGoalsRawKept
    Coventry City — attack5 in 6 matches0.570.79
    Coventry City — defence11 in 6 matches1.261.13
    Fulham — attack7 in 7 matches0.690.83
    Fulham — defence10 in 7 matches0.980.99
    The “Kept” column is the result of shrinkage towards the mean: weight = P / (P + 6), i.e. 0.50 for Coventry City and 0.54 for Fulham. The rest of the weight goes to the league average. This is what stops a lone 5-0 from producing an attack at 3.3 times the average — and hence a 95% probability.
  3. Home advantage (γ). Measured on the league itself: 1.42 goal scored on average by the host against 1.42 by the visitor, over the 52 fixtures present in each team's last 5 matches. Raw ratio 1.00; shrunk towards 1 (weight 0.44, on the log of the ratio) then capped at 1.25 → γ = 1.00. Shrinkage goes towards 1, i.e. no advantage at all: while the sample is small, the model does not assert a home advantage it cannot measure.
  4. Venue correction, specific to each team. Drawn from the home/away split: points per match at the venue concerned are compared to points per match over all fixtures, with stronger shrinkage (weight = P / (P + 8)) and a bound of ±12%.
    Coventry City at home: 1.00 pts/match versus 1.00 overall over 3 matches → ×1.000
    Fulham away: 0.33 pts/match versus 0.71 overall over 3 matches → ×0.880
  5. Expected goals. One side's attack is set against the other's defence. γ applies to the host only: applying it the other way round too would count the home advantage twice.
    λCoventry City = 1.45 × 0.79 × 0.99 × 1.00 × 1.000 = 1.14
    λFulham = 1.45 × 0.83 × 1.13 × 0.880 = 1.20
  6. Poisson grid. Probability of every exact score from 0-0 to 8-8, assuming the two goal totals are independent, then adding up the cells: home win 34.3%, draw 28.1%, away win 37.6% — displayed rounded to whole numbers so that they add up to exactly 100. Most likely exact score in the grid: 1-1 (only 13.2%, which says enough about how unpredictable an exact score is).
Limits of this model — they are not anecdotal.
  • It only knows goals and a venue. Neither absences, suspensions, line-ups, fatigue, stakes, weather nor club context enter the calculation — while the other tabs of this page show that they matter.
  • The assumption that the two goal totals are independent is false in reality: it slightly underestimates tight scores, hence the draw.
  • γ is measured over a rolling window (each team's last 5 matches), not over the whole season.
  • The shrinkage constants (6, 60, 8) and the bounds are choices, not measurements. They were tuned to be cautious early in the season; they were not calibrated on a results history, as none is available here.
  • No after-the-fact evaluation has been made: at this stage, nobody knows whether this model is better or worse calibrated than another.
What other sources say
No external source has been collected for this match. That is the normal state: readings are taken by hand, and an empty box is better than an unverified figure.
This block shows probability estimates, not predictions, and carries no advisory value. The in-house estimate is the result of a formula applied to a small sample; the figures from external sources are reproduced as they were collected, without their method having been verified.

The full squad

The professional squad by position, captain marked with an armband.

Goalkeepers
  • Bernd Leno
  • Benjamin Lecomte
Defenders
  • Timothy Castagne
  • Joachim Andersen
  • Calvin BasseyC
  • Jorge Cuenca
  • Antonee Robinson
  • Kenny Tete
  • Luc De Fougerolles
  • Ryan Sessegnon
Midfielders
  • Sander Berge
  • Alex Iwobi
  • Shea Charles
  • Harrison Reed
  • Emile Smith Rowe
  • Joshua King
  • César Palacios
  • Tom Cairney
Forwards
  • Gonzalo García
  • Rodrigo Muniz
  • Oscar Bobb
  • Kevin
  • Chibuzo Nwoko
This team's current captain could not be confirmed with certainty at the last check — no armband is shown above until the information is reliable.
Squad last verified on 31 Aug 2026 — source: Reconstruction based on the official Sky Sports team sheets for Fulham - Chelsea (24/08/2026) and Sunderland - Fulham (30/08/2026), supplemented by the 2026-27 appearances page on Football Web Pages and the Premier Injuries injury list (30/08/2026). This is therefore NOT a complete official first-team squad list but the set of players actually named on a team sheet or recorded as injured. The breakdown by position is inferred from the order of the Sky team sheets (goalkeeper, defence, midfield, attack) and is not published data. Calvin Bassey is listed as “C Ughelumba” (his full name, Calvin Bassey Ughelumba) and wore the armband in both matches, but long-standing captain Tom Cairney is injured: the long-term captaincy is not established. A substitute named against Sunderland (“M Zepa”) has not been classified for lack of a verifiable position..

What has been said recently

Chronological feed of verified information about the club.

rss12 Oct 2026
Marco Silva misses him and Fulham makes Arbeloa ultimatum
Source: Notícias ao Minuto — Desporto
rss17 Oct 2026
Iwobi delivers Fulham's first win of season
Source: BBC Sport
rss17 Oct 2026
'Men against boys' - Jakirovic criticises Hull City after Fulham defeat
Source: BBC Sport
rss17 Oct 2026
Successor of Marco Silva has disastrous beginning in Fulham: Arbeloa hasn't won the Premier League yet
Source: zerozero
rss17 Oct 2026
The Fulham of Arbeloa adds a necessary victory to Hull City
Source: Mundo Deportivo
rss17 Oct 2026
Fulham end winless run with first league victory for under-pressure Alvaro Arbeloa
Source: The Independent — Football
Result3 Sep 2026
The table as it stood before matchday 3 puts Fulham 16th with no points, two goals scored and four conceded, one of the only sides in the league yet to take a point along with Coventry, Crystal Palace, Aston Villa and Tottenham.
Source: Sky Sports
Club3 Sep 2026
Matchday 3 brings Crystal Palace to Craven Cottage on Saturday 5 September at 15:00, a London derby between two sides who have yet to take a point.
Source: Football Web Pages
Injury3 Sep 2026
Captain Tom Cairney is unavailable with a knee injury, with a return estimated in mid-October.
Source: SportsGambler
Institutional2 Sep 2026
Sky Sports give Fulham 7 out of 10 for their window: new head coach Álvaro Arbeloa was given players matching his high-pressing philosophy, forward Gonzalo García proved immediately effective, but defensive uncertainty remains given what the system demands, despite David Affengruber's arrival on deadline day.
Source: Sky Sports
Transfers2 Sep 2026
VAVEL's summary of moves puts figures on the Madrid axis of the recruitment: Gonzalo García arrived from Real Madrid for £34.27m and César Palacios from the same club for £8.57m, complemented by Shea Charles from Southampton for £26m, Jonah Kusi-Asare from Bayern Munich for £5.18m and Hugo Larsson, described by that source as a loan from Eintracht Frankfurt.
Source: VAVEL
Transfers1 Sep 2026
The club completed three signings at the close of the window: midfielder Hugo Larsson, who arrived from Eintracht Frankfurt for £21m, defender David Affengruber, signed from Elche for £8.5m, and Manuel Ángel, who came from Real Madrid for £3m.
Source: Sky Sports
Result30 Aug 2026
The numbers from the 0-1 defeat at Sunderland are harsh: Fulham did not manage a single shot on target despite spells of territorial dominance, and Álvaro Arbeloa's side have lost two in a row for the first time since the 2020-21 season.
Source: VAVEL
Result30 Aug 2026
Fulham lost 0-1 at Sunderland on 30 August, a second defeat in two matchdays after the 2-3 conceded at home to Chelsea.
Source: worldfootball.net
Other30 Aug 2026
0-1 defeat at Sunderland on matchday 2, to a 75th-minute goal from Wilson Isidor. Arbeloa concedes: “We didn't win any duels. No second balls... we were not at our level”. Fulham remain on 0 points.
Source: Sky Sports
Other27 Aug 2026
Álvaro Arbeloa's first win in charge of Fulham: 3-0 against AFC Wimbledon in the 2nd round of the Carabao Cup (Smith Rowe 37', Muniz 42', Gonzalo García 90+3'). Rodrigo Muniz ends a year-long drought with his first goal since 16/08/2025.
Source: Sky Sports
News last verified on 18 Oct 2026. Sources: sports press (L'Équipe, Le Parisien, Foot Mercato, regional press…) and official club websites — see the link on each item.
Editorial content (playing style, mood, absences, external prediction sources) last verified on 3 Sep 2026. The standings/form data above are refreshed automatically — as is the 1/X/2 estimate, recomputed on every view.