How the next four weeks could define Fulham's season

Dan Cooke looks at Fulham's next five games and why they might be an opportunity to finally kickstart our campaign.

I was chatting with some mates over the weekend and the topic of Fulham came up. They asked me how I felt about our start to the season and you could tell that they had no idea what my answer would be, because no one on the outside knows anything about us.

The only word I could think of that described my feelings was “whelmed”. We are pretty much bang on where I expected us to be and at no point, so far, have we over or under delivered. I don’t have the giddy excitement that comes with a new season, nor do I have a horrible feeling of impending doom.

I am simply whelmed.

Ultimately, I’d rather feel like this than be a West Ham fan, so it’s not a bad thing, however I do think it really plays into this growing narrative of “Fulham are dull”. I haven’t listened to a single Guardian Football Weekly podcast since Barry Glendenning called us boring at the start of last season and outright refused to talk about us because of it, but I’m starting to see his point.

Pretty much every team in the league has an interesting underlying narrative to their season; Bournemouth have their unrelenting rise under Iraola; Wolves are experiencing armageddon; Nottingham Forest are mental - there are interesting stories everywhere. We have continuity and stability, which is great, but they aren’t the features of a Hollywood blockbuster. I think it’s led to a sterile air around SW6, where even we as fans are struggling to find interesting things to say about our beloved club.

However, this stretch of five games before the next international break in November could change that.

Take on the big boys

It’s a brutal return from the international break for the Whites, hosting top-of-the-table Arsenal before a long journey north to Tyneside. We’ll be far from favourites in both of those games, but it’s worth remembering that we took four points from those same fixtures last season.

Perversely, maybe this tough return is what we need; a spark to ignite our season. Arsenal seem to have improved even further this year and are starting to look like title favourites, but our recent record against them is impressive. There’ll be a lot of eyes on this game with it being the late kick-off and it gives us a chance to make a statement. All of the focus will be on Arsenal but I’m going into it with the knowledge that we’re good at causing the big boys some headaches and I’m certainly not writing us off.

If we can bloody the nose of either them or Newcastle - or even both - it sets the foundations for a great mini run between the two international breaks. We need to generate a bit of momentum. Marco Silva and the players need to inspire us as fans. Things are too flat at the moment, everyone is just going through the motions, we’ve got two “free hits” to fix that. (I know, no game should be described as a free hit, but I’m not going to lose my mind if we don’t beat Arsenal or Newcastle, so I think it’s a fair descriptor.)

Understated cup run

As a consequence of this tepid start to the league, it’s easy to forget that we’ve coasted to the last 16 in the Carabao Cup and really should have serious confidence that we will be in the bucket for the quarter-finals.

This is a real opportunity. Barring a catastrophe in Buckinghamshire, in two weeks time we could be finding out who stands between us and a two-legged semi-final. Of the Premier League teams left in the competition, there’s only one that we haven’t beaten since being back in the big time, Manchester City, and we’ve run them close more than once.

When I look at this season, I’m struggling to see another record-breaking league campaign, but based on where we find ourselves already in the cup, there’s a concrete possibility that we could do something special. We’re eighth favourites to win the League Cup, but four of the teams rated more highly than us play each other in the upcoming round. That means, as long as we behave, we’ll likely be sixth favourites with the bookies. At that point, we’ve got a real puncher’s chance.

Four weeks to prove themselves

The upcoming month of football is really going to cement how we all feel about this Fulham team. Right now, Marco and the boys have work to do in order to generate some excitement and the next five games afford them the opportunity to do so.

Exceeding expectations in the next two games would be the ideal way to do that. Failing that, a professional performance at Wycombe and a winnable quarter-final tie will lift spirits. It really doesn’t bear thinking about how we’ll all feel if we fail at that too, so I’m going to choose to not discuss it.

It’s both hyperbolic and cliched, but these next five games really could define our season and I’m personally hopeful that the atmosphere around the club will be a lot more upbeat when we take yet another break in mid-November.