Player ratings: Fulham 2 – 1 Leicester City

In his debut piece, Michael Sheldrake recaps the Whites’ performance against Leicester City.

Fulham returned to Craven Cottage for the first time this season and would face the test of a newly-promoted Leicester City side, who were fired up on the back of an impressive draw against Tottenham in their first game. Fulham had to bounce back after a defeat at Old Trafford on opening night, and that’s exactly what we did, taking our first points of the season in a convincing performance. But how did the players perform individually?

Bernd Leno 
It was a fairly quiet game for our super Bernd in goal, but when called upon he was able to successfully claim crosses and command his penalty area well. He produced three saves including the denial of a goal from former Fulham man Bobby De Cordova-Reid after his strike from outside the box in the early stages. 7/10

Antonee Robinson
Robinson had the tough job of marking Leicester danger-man Fatawu throughout the game, but as we know his incredible pace and athleticism allow him to get up and aid the build up while still being able to recover to his position after we lose the ball, today was another example of this, and I thought he linked up with Iwobi and Emile Smith Rowe very well on the left hand side, also getting himself an assist for the winning goal. Very good game barring one or two wasteful deliveries. 8.5/10 – Man of the match

Issa Diop
Diop had to fight for his place after the recent signing of Joachim Andersen and to be fair to him he had another solid performance at centre back. There have been many doubts around his ability to play out from the back, but his defensive game today was very good. However, I don’t think it was enough to warrant him starting over Joachim Andersen at Ipswich. 7/10

Calvin Bassey
It was a very good start to the game for Bassey, using his physical strength and speed to limit Jamie Vardy, but it was a poor attempted long pass from the back that allowed Leicester to go forward and win a corner, from which he subsequently was beaten to a header by Wout Faes who scored. The rest of his game made up for this, and luckily today it wasn’t costly, but after some similar passing errors against United it’s certainly something that needs to be ironed out. 6.5/10

Kenny Tete
Kenny proved once again today why he deserves to be our first choice right back, he provided good support going forward and was impressive defensively, reminding me of his form throughout the 22/23 season. It’s great to see him back to his best; it provides very interesting, healthy competition between himself and Castagne. 7.5/10

Sasa Lukic 
I thought Sasa started the game fantastically flying in with a few lovely tackles as he attempted to fill the void left by Palhinha as we wait for Berge to be fit enough to start. It was clear that he was in a more defensive role than last season, as is necessary with Andreas partnering him in the 8. As the game went on I feel he blended in a little bit but overall another good performance from the Serbian. 7.5/10

Andreas Pereira
Another player who has been dropped into a deeper role in order to fit all the attackers in. He has received a fair bit of stick recently and I thought he started the game well, as it went on I feel some of his deliveries could have been better but it was an improvement on the United performance and it was nice to see us fit so many attacking players into the eleven, particularly when we are the stronger side and at home as we were allowed much more attacking freedom and time on the ball than we were at Old Trafford. 6/10

Emile Smith Rowe
It was a home debut to remember for our new star as he started the game off with some neat touches and passes, you could see from the get-go that he is a quality player, and he only backed that when he slotted away the opener with a composed finish over the keeper, he was seen drifting to the left to link up with Iwobi and Robinson quite often as we saw consistently over pre season. He was subbed off just after the hour mark as Marco aims to build him back up to full fitness. If he gets any better than he is now, then we can be very excited. 8/10

Alex Iwobi 
Iwobi had Leicester full-back James Justin on him today, so it wasn’t easy for him and the pace disparity was there to see, however with Emile drifting to the left and Robinson’s outstanding overlapping to support him there was always an option for him which allowed our play down the left-hand side to be very successful. He also managed to drive well with the ball and get away from his defender for his goal, which he just about managed to squeeze past the keeper to win it. 7.5/10

Adama Traore
Adama followed up his good performance from last week into the first home game, his brute strength and speed was once again a lethal weapon, he was often found one-on-one with the Leicester full back Kristiansen performing some tricks he must have learnt from the Brazilians. He provided an impressive assist for Emile’s opener and was able to get a couple of shots off himself, we could be in for a treat watching Adama this season. 8/10 

Rodrigo Muniz
Rodrigo would have come into this game wanting to score, and he had some chances but it wasn’t to be for him, he attempted his customary acrobatics as he blasted a bicycle kick over the bar and he came close with a header which half the hammy end seemed to think went in. His hold up was effective at times as he performed a nice flick-on in the build up for the first goal. We know he is a form player and he came very close to scoring in this outing, so we can only hope that when he gets his first the floodgates open once again. 6/10 

Substitutes

Tom Cairney
The skipper came on with 20 minutes to go, and managed to help us control the game while we were ahead, he received a yellow for a tactical foul which was probably needed and won a free kick deep in our own half with not long left which successfully helped slow Leicester’s attacking momentum allowing us to see the game out. 6.5/10

Harry Wilson 
Harry came on to replace Traore in the same interval as Cairney, he didn’t have enough time to make a huge impact but he did all he could and helped with some build up on that right hand side. 6/10

Raul Jimenez
Raul came on to replace Muniz with ten minutes to go, when we were hanging on to a 2-1 lead, he gave us more attacking intent for a few minutes but a lot of the final stages of the game saw Leicester attacking as you’d expect at 2-1, pressed the defence well. 6/10

Harrison Reed
Our ginger Iniesta came on in the 86th minute, but for the few minutes he was on I thought he was able to get into the game quickly and perform well. 6/10