Harry Arter spent the 2018/19 season on loan at Cardiff City, and the midfielder knows Fulham will have to be ready for a battle on Friday night.
Three wins from five – how would you assess the season so far?
I think it’s a good start. The Championship’s such a tough league, the games are relentless, so consistency is always tough to get. I always feel that the first 10 games are not always a true reflection of how the season will pan out, so it’s good that we’ve picked up some wins from really good performances. Even the Nottingham Forest game, the performance level was really high and on another day, without a doubt, we would have won.
You obviously know Cardiff well – what are you expecting on Friday?
It will be a tough game, physically. It’s quite obvious that they play a direct sort of football. I don’t feel there’s a right or wrong way to play football, it’s what the manager feels is the strongest philosophy for the group of players he’s got. It was very effective last year at times in the Premier League, and I’ve no doubt it’ll be the same this year. The Cardiff lads will be really up for the game. They were rivals a couple of years ago with Fulham pushing for that automatic promotion spot, so the rivalry will be there for that alone. It will be a good game.
Are you still in touch with any of your old teammates?
I speak to a few of the lads there; Josh Murphy and Sean Morrison are the main two really. Obviously we’ve got Bobby [Decordova-Reid] now which is a great capture for us. I know a lot of the Cardiff lads and fans were disappointed to see him go. He’s someone that I feel has settled in really well here, so it’s a shame he can’t play on Friday.
I’d normally ask if yourself or Bobby have given Scott Parker any insights, but he’s so meticulous in his preparations that he likely knows it all already!
Yeah, he’s someone who probably knows more about the structures and the details than I do, even though I was there for a year and he would have just been watching them along with Wellsy [Matt Wells]. They’re very detailed in their work, which gives us a great platform to go and perform. It doesn’t give us any excuses. The only thing he asks of us is work rate and giving 100 per cent effort. We have to make sure we’re mentally prepared for a physical game, rather than just playing total football like we have been. We’ve kept the ball really well and created a lot of opportunities to score goals, but we need to make sure we take care of that side of the game, giving our all on the pitch.