Why Aleksandar Mitrovic is ready to shine in the Premier League at last

For Aleksandar Mitrovic, everything has fallen into place this year. He is settled in west London, having signed a five-year contract at Fulham last August, and is now playing in a team capable of creating bundles of chances for him. Tactically, he has been given more freedom and to say he is a fan of head coach Marco Silva might be a bit of an understatement.

“(He’s) amazing; one of the best managers I’ve worked with,” he told Fulham’s match-day programme last week. “He’s a top, top manager and a top, top man. A real, honest man. The players can feel it, can sense it. The owners respect him. Players respect him. His tactics are amazing. He is a top team manager, and I’m sure one day he’ll manage some top teams or a national team. He’s one of the reasons that I’m still here and hopefully we can make some great memories in the future.”

It can be rare for a footballer to find a set of circumstances that perfectly suits them, but there can be no mistaking that Mitrovic has now found that at Fulham. The consequence of this positive environment was a record-breaking season: the Serbian scored 43 times as everything he touched turned to goals.

If ever there was a time for Mitrovic to break the stereotypes about his Premier League capabilities, then surely this is it. The perception of him up until now is that he is a striker who cannot bridge the ever-widening gap between the top flight and the Championship.

It is a case of like man, like club. Fulham too, for all their ambition to end their “yo-yo” status, find themselves stuck in an emotional purgatory. “Promotion? Ha! See you in the Championship in two years’ time.”

It is a simplistic soundbite, but that perception of the former Newcastle United and Anderlecht striker has always been married to Fulham’s fate. It does colour his own individual performance, even if it is not as terrible — or conclusive — as most assume.

His numbers in the Premier League have not been exceptional and do not reflect what he has achieved in the Championship. Objectively, he has not shown a consistency when it comes to goalscoring at that level and in fact, he actually underperforms in the Premier League when it comes to expected goals (xG). In short, he scores fewer goals in the Premier League than would be expected from the chances created for him, while by contrast, he overperforms in the Championship.

But there are some mitigating circumstances and that is why, heading into the 2022-23 season, this time feels different.

His previous attempts have all been tinged by difficult seasons. Mitrovic was signed by Newcastle in 2015 from Anderlecht, aged 20, but in his first full season he was thrown in at the deep end.

“We signed him and he was a young player, and we wanted him as the No 2,” Steve McClaren told Sky Sports in February. “Unfortunately, we got injuries and we had to put him as the No 1. He was immature and wasn’t ready for that.” Mitrovic was sent off twice and developed a reputation for his hot-headedness. Despite this, though, he still scored nine league goals in a relegated team — from 22 starts out of his 34 appearances.

Mitrovic fell out of favour under McClaren’s successor, Rafa Benitez, who felt that he could not build a team around him to stay in the league. The striker then joined Fulham permanently in July 2018 after achieving promotion on loan and the club went on to sign 11 new players that summer before cycling through three distinctly different managers during the season.

Slavisa Jokanovic, a coach with an attacking philosophy, was replaced by the much more conservative Claudio Ranieri before Scott Parker then picked up the pieces. Despite the upheaval, Mitrovic started the 2018-19 campaign with four goals in his first five league games, and ended it just one shy of Ivan Toney’s total (12) this season for Brentford.

His most recent Premier League experience, in 2020-21, was disappointing — but again with mitigating circumstances. Like under Benitez, he fell out of favour and this time it was Parker who left him on the bench as the then Fulham manager tried to adopt a more fluid, counter-pressing system — one that just did not suit Mitrovic.

Relations deteriorated and a confidence-hit Mitrovic scored only three league goals, making just 13 starts all season. That season, he actually scored more for Serbia (seven), helping them to qualify for the World Cup. He was expected to leave Fulham last summer, only for Tony Khan and Silva to dissuade him.

His Premier League experience, then, leaves questions unanswered about his top-flight ability. The one constant throughout this time was that Mitrovic was also consistently scoring for Serbia, a supposed contradiction. He now has 44 international goals and is his country’s all-time leading goalscorer.

But now that he is in the best form of his career and playing in a team suited to him at club level, is this the moment for Mitrovic to prove his Premier League doubters wrong?

As a player today, Mitrovic is a long way off from the hot-headed youngster who first set foot at St James’ Park. He is a different proposition altogether: a player with sky-high confidence who, at 27 years old, is now in his prime but can actually do more than just score goals. The Premier League will now get to see Mitrovic at the peak of his powers and in a role that suits him.

His goalscoring record this season speaks not only of his ruthlessness in front of goal but also how well suited he is to Silva’s style of play. The statistics are impressive. With two goals in Fulham’s 7-0 demolition of Luton earlier this month, he became the first player for 63 years to score 43 goals in the second tier, surpassing Guy Whittingham’s 46-game record of 42. That also meant that he tied Fulham’s club record for goals in a single season, an accolade previously held by Frank Newton for 90 years.

He has scored all of his goals inside the penalty area. Of those, nine were with his left foot and 22 were with his right foot. It is no surprise that 12 of his goals this season have been headers.

Mitrovic is part of an attacking team that have mustered 106 goals as a collective and created chances for him worth 0.86 xG per 90 minutes: the most of any player in the division. He has, though, still outperformed his expected goals number, averaging 1.01 goals per 90 minutes. Only Matt Godden of Coventry City can claim a similar level of overperformance in the Championship — and he scored only 12 goals this season.

But there is more now to Mitrovic’s game. Silva has given him licence to drop into midfield a lot more to help with the team’s build-up play, and that is notable from his touch maps. He is taking more touches in central areas of the field…

…particularly so compared to his previous season in the Championship, where he scored 26 league goals. He is averaging nearly three more touches per game in his own half, despite the dominance Fulham have shown against different sides this season.

Mitrovic has become an influential player tactically. Once an opponent matches Silva’s trusted 4-3-3 system man-for-man in midfield, Mitrovic often becomes the spare player to help move the team forward. In this example against Luton, two Fulham midfielders — Tom Cairney and Fabio Carvalho — are marked, whereas Mitrovic moves untracked into midfield.

What Mitrovic does with the ball has been impressive, too. He has picked up seven assists this season — the most he has managed in a single season during his senior career. This is in part because of his greater role in link play. By taking up deeper positions, he is able to thread passes through to the midfield and wide runners.

In particular, he has forged an excellent relationship with Harry Wilson on the Fulham right. Between them, they have managed 13 goal combinations (where both are either assist provider or goalscorer). Often, Mitrovic has picked out Wilson instinctively, with the Welshman’s intelligent movement too difficult for opponents to monitor. In the 7-0 win over Reading in January, it was not his goalscoring that caught the eye but his build-up play.

Here in that game he plays a key role in Neeskens Kebano’s goal, sliding Wilson in behind the defence…

…who then found Kebano at the back post.

Mitrovic himself says he feels much fitter than before and looks to be a more confident player. He is clearly enjoying life under Silva and his coach believes he is ready for the Premier League.

“He’s ready to play any competition in any country, in my opinion,” said Silva. “I don’t have doubts. Right now is his best season so far in his career. It is a fantastic feeling for me to help him to play at this level, to help him to keep scoring goals.”

Next season in the Premier League will be a different challenge for Mitrovic. He will have fewer opportunities to feed on and he will also have to play in a team that will inevitably be pinned 30 to 40 yards further back up the field over long stretches in games. The way he has played this season is unlikely to be the same next year.

“Of course, if you ask me right now if next season we will have 70 per cent of possession every single match, I’ll answer to you directly: no,” said Silva.

“It’s up to me and my staff to create the conditions to get the best from our players. Mitrovic is a very good player. If you ask me if he can play Premier League — he already did it. He already scored goals there as well.

“It’s up to us to keep working with him, to keep improving, because he has many things to keep improving. Playing in a different way, as well, because we will not be so dominant for sure in certain games and of course, we have to find different ways to take the best from him and from the others.”

If Fulham can maintain the same platform that has allowed Mitrovic to reach extraordinary heights this past season, then there is no reason why he cannot show he belongs at Premier League level.

Should he prove his doubters wrong, it will go a long way to helping Fulham secure their top-flight status, too.

 (Top photo: Adam Davy/PA Images via Getty Images)