Pointless Fulham with early relegation fears, after gifting Palace’s first win of the season

Fulham (2) 2 v Crystal Palace (1) 3

King 11

Mitchell 36

Palacios 42

Mitchell 54

Chilwell 77

By Kaz Mochlinski at Craven Cottage

Premier League

Matchweek 3

Crystal Palace gained their first points of the new Premier League season with a vital victory at Craven Cottage, producing a spirited comeback from being behind at half-time to leave Fulham in despair after three consecutive defeats.

All three Palace goals were scored by their left-sided wing-backs, with two from Tyrick Mitchell and then the winner by his replacement, Ben Chilwell, prompting the away fans in the Putney End to delightedly sing “Left-back again, olé, olé!”

Fulham had earlier established a first-half advantage with Josh King’s second goal in two home matches and César Palacios’s first goal for his new club since his recent transfer from Real Madrid.

But ultimately Álvaro Arbeloa’s opening couple of games at the Cottage as the Fulham head coach have both finished with his team losing 2-3 in two London derbies to Chelsea and Crystal Palace in turn.

After another encounter between two clubs with new men in charge, it was Palace’s latest manager, Pierre Sage, who at the final whistle was relieved to have secured his first win in the Premier League.

On a beautiful sunsoaked late summer afternoon beside the River Thames, there was an added tension in the air for a meeting between capital rivals who were two of the top flight’s five sides to have been beaten in both their first matches.

Arguably, the away team were in the worse situation before kick-off, as no other Premier League club had conceded more goals (six) or had a poorer goal difference (minus five) following the initial pair of matchweeks.

Furthermore, having already had to accept the sales of Maxence Lacroix and Daniel Muñoz, Sage has to manage for the moment without Jean-Philippe Mateta and Ismaïla Sarr, who have each been affected adversely by transfer speculation.

Interestingly, neither Arbeloa nor Sage have chosen to change the formations favoured by their predecessors, keeping Marco Silva’s 4-2-3-1 structure and Oliver Glasner’s 3-4-3 system respectively.

Within that framework, Fulham’s tactics are being tweaked more evidently, pressing with greater intensity, higher up the pitch, looking to win the ball in more dangerous areas, but as a result leaving themselves far more open at the back.

Up to now, it has produced thrilling football at the Cottage but has been unequivocally unsuccessful. There were some audible boos from the Fulham fans at full-time, and the negativity was primarily directed towards Arbeloa.

“With that spirit and character, if we play in this way, the victories will come” he responded, pointedly praising his side in stark contrast to the criticism he expressed after last week’s defeat at Sunderland.

“We did many good things to win the game. It was similar against Chelsea, but we lose. For the players it’s a difficult situation, difficult moment, but I am very proud of them.”

Alex Iwobi made his 100th Premier League appearance for Fulham, getting to that milestone after playing in several different positions with impressive versatility, but he is not primarily a defensive midfielder.

Alongside him in the double pivot, Shea Charles started for the first time in the Premier League, having become the most expensive Northern Ireland footballer ever in a reported £30 million transfer from Southampton.

Charles notably began the move for the opening goal, and showed some promising touches before being replaced late on by another summer signing, Hugo Larsson, who on his debut already looked encouragingly assured.

Palace will have been equally heartened by Axel Disasi’s first start and Quinten Timber’s debut for the club, while there was another Eagles debutant in the last of the substitutes, Dario Osorio.

For Fulham to take the first-half initiative, a lot of luck went their way, as King gave them an early lead with a shot deflected off Jaydee Canvot, and three minutes later Daichi Kamada had an equaliser ruled out for a fractional offside.

The Cottagers got back in front just before half-time through a goal cleverly created by King but finished fortuitously by Palacios, who struck the ball into the ground with the bounce carrying it over Dean Henderson’s dive.

In between, Mitchell had brought Palace level when he beat Bernd Leno at the goalkeeper’s near post. Having equalised with nine minutes to go in the first half, he repeated the effort nine minutes into the second period.

This time, Mitchell could not help but smile, as the ball ricocheted off him from Gonzalo García’s attempted clearance and into the net. It meant that this was the first match in which he had ever scored two goals.

“Tyrick Mitchell was definitely the man-of the-match” suggested Sage. “First of all for his two goals. And then also for his decision to leave the pitch to be replaced by Ben Chilwell, who got the winning goal.”

The substitute scored with his first touch of the ball. After rejoining Palace on transfer deadline day, Chilwell began just like he had ended his original spell at the club, getting goals in two successive games, 16 months apart.

Fulham had 61.5% possession and 14 attempts on goal against Chelsea, then followed that up with 64.7% possession and 25 shots against Palace, but found that it was not enough in the end to earn even a point.

The Eagles’ success maintained the marked advantage of the away club in this contest, with no home triumph having happened in any competition at either Craven Cottage or Selhurst Park since the 2018-19 campaign.

And all of 21 years have passed now from Fulham’s most recent win on their own ground in this fixture, as Palace’s striking sequence of superiority stretched to nine matches unbeaten at the Cottage, with six victories, including the last four in a row.

It is far too soon in the season to talk about this game being a relegation “six-pointer”, but already many of the Fulham faithful are fearful about their fall into the bottom three after three matches, with only Coventry City also being pointless.

This is just the third time in their history that Fulham have lost each of their opening three fixtures of a season in the top division. And on both of the previous two occasions, in 1951-52 and 2020-21, they finished up being relegated.

Fulham (4-2-3-1): Leno - Castagne, Andersen, Bassey, Robinson (Sessegnon 79) - Charles (Larsson 79), Iwobi (Muniz 83) - Bobb (Smith Rowe 79), King, Palacios (Berge 61) - García

Crystal Palace (3-4-3): Henderson - Richards, Disasi, Canvot - Khalaili, Timber (Hughes 74), Wharton, Mitchell (Chilwell 74) - Kamada (Mingueza 89), Nketiah (Strand Larsen 46), Pino (Osorio 89)

Attendance: 27,230