Things are looking a sniffle more positive in West London with the arrival of 'The Tinkerman' Claudio Ranieri to try and salvage the sinking ship of Fulham F.C.
To be fair, things couldn’t have gotten much worse for the recently-promoted side, having recorded the most goals conceded by a Premier League team at this early point of the season, and wallowing rock bottom of the table with just a single win from their opening 12 games.
Though Fulham fans are of course indebted to Slaviša Jokanović’s almost three years of service which saw them eventually return to the English top tier, his successor Ranieri’s credentials and prestige - with his unbelievable Leicester City triumph still relatively fresh - opens up a bit of a yellow brick road for the Cottagers.
With speculation rife as to who will be the new manager’s signings in little more than six weeks’ time, one of the Italian’s predominant concern should be how to relieve the goalscoring burden currently piled onto the back of forward Aleksandar Mitrovic, who Fulham finally bought in the summer after impressing in the latter half of last season on loan from Newcastle United.
This season, the Serb has a solid return of five goals in 12 appearances, but this haul is currently floundering; the drought of Mitrovic not hitting the back of the net inconveniently coinciding with Fulham’s six straight losses.
Liverpool youngster Dominic Solanke gave himself a solid audition for prospective clubs in a scintillating performance for the England Under-21s this week.
The 21-year-old bagged a brace as England saw off the young Italy side, the first coming before even ten minutes were up, and then got the winner eight minutes after the break, slightly before which Moise Kean had equalised.
Much was expected when Solanke decided to make the move to Anfield from Chelsea in July of last year with many expecting the forward to be taken under manager Jurgen Klopp’s wing and nurtured to becoming a prominent Red striker. Instead, he and Belgium striker Divock Origi have reportedly been allowed to go out on loan moves in order to further their progression.
If this is indeed the case, then Fulham should indeed be batting their eyelashes in the young man’s direction.
Solanke has yet to feature in the Premier League this season, and has made the first team bench only once, in a EFL Cup game against Chelsea.
This pales in comparison to the leaps and bounds his compatriots Reiss Nelson and Jadon Sancho are currently making over in the Bundesliga, which must surely be at the forefront of Solanke’s mind, whom attention was brought to ever since his joint-second highest goal tally achieved in 2017 at the FIFA Under-20 World Cup.
When the January transfer window opens up, the Fulham hierarchy should be less concerned with adding to their admittedly heavy summer outlay, and focus instead on the importance of bringing in a player who could well prove to go on a be one of the deadliest marksmen in the English game.
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Dominic Solanke put in a big shift against Italy this evening...
(📹 @btsportfootball)
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