Fulham vs Sunderland prediction: ENGLAND: FA Cup betting tips on match 2023-01-27 15:00.
The first of four FA Cup Fourth Round matches between Premier League (PL) and Championship clubs will see Fulham take a breather from a bruising setback to their top-five ambitions after their recent 1-0 defeat to Tottenham saw them lose to a current top-five club for a seventh time this PL season. Considering Fulham continue to be outclassed by elite PL opposition, a shock FA Cup title could be their only path to European football next season.
Having gone unbeaten in their last nine competitive outings that weren’t against the PL’s top five (W7, D2), including a “special” evening for manager Marco Silva in which he dumped former employer Hull out of the FA Cup during the last round, Fulham rightfully assume favourites status here and should avoid defeat after doing so in each of their last six competitive outings as pre-match favourites (W3, D3). Just don’t remind a pessimistic Cottager that it was League Two club Crawley that sent them out of this season’s EFL Cup!
Sunderland have been eyeing a return to the PL after six seasons in the wilderness and will relish this opportunity to test themselves against last season’s EFL Championship winners, particularly after working their way towards the current Championship top six by defeating fellow promotion aspirants Millwall, Blackburn and Middlesbrough since the World Cup.
Those three wins were all within the comforts of home, and this now promises to be a much sterner test than their trip to League One side Shrewsbury Town (W 2-1) in the previous FA Cup round, despite the absence of star Fulham striker Aleksandar Mitrović for this match. In each of the four previous FA Cup editions, Sunderland were eliminated in earlier rounds by teams below the top-two tiers at the time, so getting past Fulham here or in a replay would be nothing short of special.
Key battle: Daniel James sealed the victory against Hull in Fulham’s previous FA Cup tie and, in the absence of the injured Mitrović, will be the only player to have scored in more than one of Fulham’s last eight competitive fixtures. Sunderland keeper Anthony Patterson was rested against Shrewsbury but should return hoping to end four consecutive competitive away games without a clean sheet.
Hot streak: Fulham’s last nine competitive fixtures all produced a winner, but no more than three total goals in each.