Champion League
Forest vs Fulham: Injury News & Predicted XI
Nottingham Forest will look to continue their sprint towards Premier League promotion tonight, but will face a tough test against Champions-elect Fulham at Craven Cottage.
A victory would effectively cement Forest’s spot in the play-off places, though Cooper will be looking for a win in case of the possibility that they could pip both Bournemouth and Huddersfield to the second-place automatic promotion spot.
Including tonight’s fixture, Forest have four games to play with one of those ties against Bournemouth – their rivals for automatic promotion. A win today is a must for Steve Cooper’s side.
Who will win tonight?
In terms of injury news, Max Lowe is still out with a groin issue, and Steve Cook is also unlikely to start after just coming back from an ankle injury. Fulham will not roll over though and still have the title to play for, despite already sealing their ticket back to the Premier League.
Keinan Davis is another who is ruled out due to a hamstring injury sustained against Luton Town two games ago.
Lewis Grabban is also unlikely to feature after hobbling off after a 15-minute cameo appearance against Peterborough.
With that update, here is how we at Football FanCast expect Nottingham Forest to line up against Fulham tonight.
In what would be a real statement of intent, our predicted line-up sees Surridge retain his starting spot through Grabban’s injury, meaning that there is just one change, with £1.8m-rated Tobias Figueiredo axed for Joe Lolley, due to the 4-2-3-1 system switch.
With his attacking prowess – he has 26 goals for Forest in total – and Lyle Taylor’s praise, dubbing him a “wriggly worm”, he could cause the Cottagers all sorts of problems this evening.
Cooper’s side have stuck with the 3-4-1-2 system for the last six games which has seen them score thirteen goals and concede just two during that run. And although the saying “don’t fix what isn’t broken” rings true in most cases, it failed to work for them last time out against Fulham who ran out 4-0 winners.
The 4-2-3-1 system has notably been used in big games by Cooper. In the game against Fulham before the 4-0 thrashing, they used the 4-2-3-1 system and narrowly lost 1-0.
This system was also used against Liverpool, who also found it tough against Forest.
A change to a hardy 4-2-3-1 could pay dividends for Cooper and provide an element of shock for Marco Silva.
