Fulham at the end of last season were ruthless, scored goals at will and were, quite frankly, frightening.
Sides were already beaten by the time they stepped out onto the pitch with Slavisa Jokanovic's men, fearing what could happen if they made a mistake going forward knowing full well six passes later it would probably be in the back of their net.
Newcastle, Huddersfield, Norwich - it made no difference, Fulham would show up, put on a spectacle and stick the ball in the back of the net at will.
Witnessing those victories at St James' Park and at the John Smith's was something, but in truth it masked a reality that the side are facing up to now.
There's just no firepower at the club.
It's easy to say the same about last season too, there was no real striker at the club, although the way Chris Martin played football dragged centre backs into a dogfight and gave space to other players, but the midfield and wide players stepped up then.
This season, they aren't.
Stefan Johansen, despite some quarters calling for the Norweigian to be dropped, is the club's leading scorer and has stepped into the void left by Tom Cairney, creating chances and sticking them in the back of the net, but apart from that the scoring charts make for bleak reading.
It looks something like this:
Johansen - four goals
Piazon - two goals
Kebano - two goals
Kamara - two goals
Norwood - two goals
Odoi - two goals
Ayite - one goal
Fonte - one goal
Sessegnon - one goal
Fulham's front men who were bought in over the summer have only netted three goals between them and are struggling in front of goal - Fonte looks like he needs to play off someone in the number ten role while Kamara is raw but isn't ready to lead the line in a side chasing the Premier League.
The lack of firepower was clear for all to see last season and it needed to be addressed in the summer, but Fulham's ruthlessness in the latter part of the season masked the reality, with Dwight Gayle being described as a 'bonus' signing when in fact, a player like him should've been a nessecity.
There's no doubting in my opinion that Fonte is a good player, however he's not a wide player and is currently under utilised in the squad, nor is he the out-and-out striker to lead the line.
Jokanovic has seen this, his formation change for the trip to Forest proves that, where Fonte was far more effective playing behind Kamara who had a field day against a slow and frightful Nottingham defence, but a 22-year-old who has never played Championship football before is not going to be doing that every week.
The 2-1 loss at Villa showed just how badly Fulham miss that firepower up top - they were out of ideas in the final third and struggled to break through, becoming rash and just hitting the ball in hope.
Would a striker like Gayle have made a difference?
Yes - Fulham were dangerous on the break and someone with his ability to play on the shoulder and stick the ball in the next would've made a difference, but the club unfortunately don't have that at the moment.
Whether or not Fulham go back for the Newcastle man in January remains to be seen, but if the club's recruitment department will have learned anything from the first quarter and a bit of the season is that the same problem is still lingering over the Cottage at the moment - the club have no striker that can net goals regularly.
It's worth mentioning, however, that this time exactly one year ago Fulham were beaten at Villa Park - they went out the next week and smashed Huddersfield 5-0 and went on to lose just once in nine games.
A repeat couldn't happen, surely?
