Fulham manager Marco Silva says Aston Villa have enough about them to cope with any dips in form or injury problems.
Unai Emery’s side will arrive at Craven Cottage without influential trio Ezri Konsa, Diego Carlos and Boubacar Kamara, while they have also lost three of their last four matches in all competitions.
Nonetheless, Silva is a big fan of the work being done at Villa Park, and cited the one game they did win in the last four as a key example – a 5-0 away thrashing of Sheffield United.
“Top challenge, a difficult one,” Silva assessed. “Unai is doing a fantastic job there. They are fighting for the Champions League places, still playing in European competition. It’s been so difficult for any team to play against them at their home, away from home as well.
“The way they react in some moments when they have bad results, straightaway they can react. A good example – after a bad result [at home to Newcastle], when they went to Sheffield United away, they won clearly that game, and that showed their quality.
“Really, really well managed by Unai as well, with top players in their squad, even with the injuries that they have. If you can replace Pau Torres with [Clement] Lenglet, or Lenglet with Pau Torres, there's not a big difference.
“They have all these quality players, [Leon] Bailey or [Moussa] Diaby, all these players that they have in certain areas of the pitch, of course shows the quality they have in their squad, and it’s going to be a really tough game for us.”