{"id":583968,"date":"2021-02-17T10:58:19","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T15:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=583968"},"modified":"2021-02-17T10:58:19","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T15:58:19","slug":"aleksandar-mitrovic-out-for-fulham-after-covid-19-positive-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/02\/17\/aleksandar-mitrovic-out-for-fulham-after-covid-19-positive-test\/","title":{"rendered":"Aleksandar Mitrovic Out for Fulham After COVID-19 Positive Test"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/clubs\/fulham\/\" target=\"_self\">Fulham<\/a> are to be without Serbian striker <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/3925dbd6\/Aleksandar-Mitrovic\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aleksandar Mitrovic<\/a> after his positive COVID-19 result. Mitrovic is suffering from &#8216;mild symptoms&#8217; according to manager Scott Parker after contracting the virus last week.<\/p>\n<h2>Blow for Fulham After Aleksandar Mitrovic Tests Positive for COVID-19<\/h2>\n<h3>Disappointing News for Scott Parker Ahead of a Big Week for Fulham<\/h3>\n<p>The Serbian has struggled for form this season after an impressive campaign in the Championship last year. Mitrovic was a mainstay in the side but has not been a regular starter so far this season.<\/p>\n<p>Fulham boss Scott Parker is disappointed with his absence as he feels this has come at a moment where he &#8216;was coming out the other side of what has been a bit of a tough season&#8217;. He has only started eight games this year for the Cottagers, but had slowly been experiencing a change in form.<\/p>\n<p>This comes at a difficult time for Fulham, who have a big week coming up which will entail some season-defining results. They face <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/clubs\/burnley\/\" target=\"_self\">Burnley<\/a> this evening before a relegation six-pointer at home to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/01\/30\/arsenal-manchester-united-season-defining-clash\/\" target=\"_self\">Sheffield United<\/a> on Saturday. Mitrovic will be unavailable for both games.<\/p>\n<p>The trip to Turf Moor is made more difficult with this news. Burnley have found a run of good form which has increased the gap to eight points between themselves and Fulham. An impressive 3-0 win away to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/clubs\/crystal-palace\/\" target=\"_self\">Crystal Palace<\/a> this weekend means Sean Dyche&#8217;s side will go into tonight&#8217;s game full of confidence looking to extend that gap between them and the bottom three.<\/p>\n<p>Closing the gap on Burnley would be a bigger feat than extending their gap from Sheffield United on Sunday. A loss to Burnley could mean,n regardless of their result this weekend, they will be no closer to safety. This is a huge week for Parker&#8217;s men which will have a large say on their Premier League future.<\/p>\n<p>In Mitrovic&#8217;s absence, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/02\/01\/fulham-sign-striker-josh-maja-on-loan-from-bordeaux\/\" target=\"_self\">January signing Josh Maja<\/a> will look to fill the goalscoring void for Fulham. The 22-year-old scored twice on his debut against <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/clubs\/everton\/\" target=\"_self\">Everton<\/a> in an impressive win for Parker&#8217;s men. He will look to pick up from where he left off. Fulham have struggled all season to score goals. Before last weekend&#8217;s trip to Goodison Park, Fulham had only managed to find the back of the net four times in the league since Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>If Fulham are to have any hope of staying in the division, by closing their seven-point gap from safety, they will have to find goals from somewhere. Parker will hope Maja can step up to the task.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"823i2RtFTPBk_JtETln4tA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1298128721\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'823i2RtFTPBk_JtETln4tA',sig:'F1-wZ_WZbZup7sATRL8qirg0XU7jEt6WOeAPgQrZaGM=',w:'594px',h:'395px',items:'1298128721',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fulham are to be without Serbian striker Aleksandar Mitrovic after his positive COVID-19 result. Mitrovic is suffering from &#8216;mild symptoms&#8217; according to manager Scott Parker after contracting the virus last week. Blow for Fulham After Aleksandar Mitrovic Tests Positive for COVID-19 Disappointing News for Scott Parker Ahead of a Big Week for Fulham The Serbian [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3485,"featured_media":583985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,2511,3],"tags":[2765,573,40,4966,3711,136],"class_list":["post-583968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-fulham","category-premier-league","tag-aleksandar-mitrovic","tag-fulham","tag-premier-league","tag-premier-league-relegation","tag-scott-parker","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Nat Goodlad, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3485"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}