Fulham lost 2:3 to Crystal Palace in the third round of the Premier League regular season on Saturday at Craven Cottage. The visitors took the lead twice and held on after the hosts equalised through Ben Chilwell in the seventy-seventh minute. The result leaves Fulham bottom of the table with no points from three matches, while Palace move up to thirteenth with three points.
Josh King opened the scoring for the hosts in the eleventh minute, and the game seemed to settle into a rhythm that favoured the home side. To be fair, the statistics would suggest that, with Fulham holding sixty-four per cent of possession and registering thirty-one shots compared to Palace's eight. But the match did not follow the numbers. Daichi Kamada had a goal disallowed by VAR in the fourteenth minute before scoring himself moments later, and Tyrick Mitchell doubled Palace's advantage in the thirty-fifth minute.
Cesar Palacios Perez added a fourth goal for Palace in the forty-second minute, and by then the home side were chasing the game rather than controlling it. Eddie Nketiah came on for Fulham in the forty-fifth minute as the hosts tried to get back into the contest. Mitchell scored again in the fifty-fourth minute, and Palace were comfortable despite the late pressure. Chilwell pulled one back in the seventy-seventh minute, but Palace held their nerve through eight substitutions and saw the game out.
Fulham created more chances on paper, with expected goals of 3.14 against Palace's 1.97, and they registered twenty key passes to eight. But the hosts shot off target ten times and only hit the target six times, while Palace converted half of their five shots on target. The difference was in efficiency. Palace made twenty-nine clearances and won eighteen tackles, while Fulham managed twelve clearances and six tackles. The hosts carved them open on the break more than once, and the visitors worked their short corners into something dangerous.
The result does not change anything dramatic in the table, but it extends Palace's run of not losing in their last three matches while keeping Fulham winless. The hosts have now lost three straight, and the gap between their possession and their output remains a problem that no amount of passing will fix. Palace will take the three points and move on, while Fulham have to decide whether the issue is tactical or simply that they are second to everything.
