Fulham vs Norwich City. Sky Bet Championship.
Craven CottageAttendance20,134.
Friday 4 August 2017 14:03, UK
Fulham head coach Slavisa Jokanovic is sweating on the fitness of club captain Tom Cairney ahead of their opening Sky Bet Championship home match with Norwich.
The Scotland international missed the Cottagers' final pre-season friendly against Wolfsburg with a knee injury and is rated doubtful for the match after only returning to full training on Thursday.
One player definitely missing is centre-back Ragnar Sigurdsson following the Iceland international's season-long loan move to Russian side Rubin Kazan.
Tomas Kalas is set to make his first appearance since re-joining the club on loan while new signings Aboubakar Kamara and Ibrahima Cisse could be handed their debuts.
Norwich captain Russell Martin is a major injury doubt for his side's trip to Craven Cottage. Martin (leg) did not train on Friday and will face a late fitness test ahead of the Championship fixture.
Josh Murphy and Ivo Pinto, who has missed the entirety of Norwich's pre-season campaign, could be available from the bench, but Jamal Lewis, Harry Toffolo, Tim Klose, Alex Pritchard are all out. German Daniel Farke takes charge of the Canaries for the first time after he succeeded Alex Neil, who was sacked in March.
The Whites have won four of their last eight opening day matches (D3 L1), losing 1-2 to Ipswich in 2014/15.
Norwich's 4-1 win over Blackburn on MD1 last season was their first opening day victory in 14 attempts (D6 L7).
Fulham have won have won six of their last seven league games against Norwich City, keeping clean sheets on five occasions.
The Canaries haven't won an away game against Fulham since January 1986, losing eight of the 10 meetings in all competitions since (D2).
The indecision we saw around Norwich at the back end of last season has hopefully been put to bed by the new boss coming in, and it will be intriguing to see how Daniel Farke gets on early doors.
Slavisa Jokanovic has had a bit of a grumble about recruitment at Fulham so far this summer, but he's been able to keep Tom Cairney and Ryan Sessegnon, which is excellent news for them. I feel like both teams would take a draw here on opening day.
Prutton predicts: 1-1 (11/2 with Sky Bet)
