Fulham 1-1 Crystal Palace
My blog last week posited the theory that there are two Fulham FCs: one good, one bad, playing on alternate weekends.
If so, we should have had a treat when Crystal Palace came calling, but the match provided arguably the worst first-half seen at the Cottage this season.
Timid in attack and error-prone in defence, the Whites somehow survived to the interval without conceding a goal. Palace, who beat Newcastle 2-0 in mid-week, missed a ton of chances to embarrass their London near-neighbours.
We had hardly settled in our seats when Adam Wharton put Michel Olise through, only for the Hammersmith-born player to miss the target.
Issa Diop, replacing the unsettled Tosin, gave the ball away, and in the subsequent scramble Daniel Munoz fell spectacularly in a vain attempt to win a penalty. Jean-Philippe Mateta and then Chris Richards squandered more legitimate opportunities to score.
A good feature of the match was the unobtrusive officiating. Could that be the same Stuart Attwell who awarded that ludicrous penalty against Diop at Anfield a year ago?
One of Bernd Leno’s saves left him in pain and the subsequent break in play may have allowed Marco Silva to lecture his floundering players, but it took 42 minutes from kick-off for Fulham to produce a shot on target.
Joao Palhinha, less prominent than usual, provided a rather tricky opening for Rodrigo Muniz, who evaded Richards but could not find the best angle to beat goalkeeper Dean Henderson.
Two great second-half strikes
Silva did not make any changes at the break. It proved to be a good call, because his underperforming team took an early lead. Andreas Pereira fed the ball to Timothy Castagne on the right, and the Belgian delivered the perfect centre for Muniz to head into the net.
When substitutions were made, it was encouraging to see Willian and Tom Cairney prompting their colleagues, even if the improvement was marginal.
Palace sub Odsonne Edouard nearly equalised but Leno was back to his best, and with a calmer head Harrison Reed could have doubled the lead.
Then out of nowhere another substitute, Jeffrey Schlupp, found himself free on the edge of the area and delivered a wondrous left footed drive into the top corner of the net. The match for all its mediocrity had given us two exceptional goals. Neither side deserved more than a point.
Schlupp has form of course. In August 2018 when Fulham’s multimillion-pound team made its Premier League debut it was him who spoilt the party, scorching an equally unstoppable shot past new keeper Fabri.
A legend returns to Craven Cottage
I must not overlook one pleasure last Saturday, the half-time appearance of Louis Saha. He was introduced as the club’s greatest all-round goal scorer. I would not query that though we did have a useful Serb not so long ago.
Having watched Fulham for 76 years I would also put in a plea for the record-breaking trio of Bedford Jezzard, Johnny Haynes and Gordon Davies. They are certainly not forgotten, and Gordon Davies can be heard on the latest Fulham Fix podcast (episode 21).
As I mentioned the other week the Whites tend to fade in April. If you read the match report in The Times on Monday, you might believe that the team had vanished altogether.
In seventeen paragraphs Paul Hirst and Tom Prentki neither mentioned a single person currently connected with the home side nor used the word Fulham except in the sub-heading.
I hope that Muniz and his colleagues reappear in time for the Brentford match on Saturday.
The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.
