An away day at an unbeaten Nottingham Forest would prove to be a very interesting test, but our in-form Whites managed to get the job done and pick up our first three points on the road this season, let’s delve into what went well, and what could have been better.

Positives

A solid clean sheet

We have looked defensively strong so far this season, but there always seems to be something that gets in the way of our clean sheet. After conceding exactly one goal in all of our previous league games this season, we finally managed to leave our net untouched. 

If you haven’t wiped your brain of the calamitous performance at The City Ground last season, you will remember the three goals we managed to concede in the first half of that game. However, a contrast in defensive performance can be seen as a major improvement, in particular for Kenny Tete who struggled significantly in the previous encounter, but continued his fantastic start to the season in this game as he once again proved why he deserves to keep starting in this team.

The centre-back partnership has worked wonders already but I believe today was the best we’ve seen yet between Calvin Bassey and Joachim Andersen, it felt like almost every ball they whipped in had the cranium of the Great Dane leaping to head it clear, and he put his body on the line brilliantly when blocking Forest’s attempts. Bassey alongside him also had a great performance with a crucial tackle towards the end of the game to deny Anthony Elanga a good chance. Only Liverpool have conceded fewer than us so far this season, so we can be very excited of what’s to come with this back line.

With uncertainty around Issa Diop’s distribution at the start of the season, it is clear that Andersen brings just that, but Diop also managed to get himself some minutes as he came on towards the end of the game to shore up that defensive line, and give ourselves extra protection from Forest’s flurries forward. He performed well when he was needed in the earlier games, and it’s good to see him coming on when we need to hold on. We all saw what happened at West Ham when he wasn’t brought on, so this looks to be Marco’s new way of dealing with the pressure in the dying moments. 

50 not out for Raul

Raul Jimenez scored his 50th Premier League goal and his third in three Premier League starts this season, as his form looks to be returning he continues to solidify his place in the starting XI. This will boost his confidence once again and hopefully we only see more and more goals from him.

It was a finish from the penalty spot this time for Raul, as he became only the second Mexican to reach 50 Premier League goals. Whilst his stuttering run-up scared me the outcome did not, as he finished past a diving Sels who was quite close to denying him, and celebrated in front of the travelling Whites who were delighted to see us take the lead away from home. There was some worry about whether Rodrigo Muniz could continue his form from last season, but whilst he has had a slow start Jimenez has taken this chance to step up to the plate and he has certainly delivered. We can only hope that this time he won’t get any silly reds to knock him back.

It was about time we got a penalty in the Premier League, with our last one coming exactly 10 months and one day prior in that 3-2 win over Wolves. Although it’s fair to say we certainly had enough practice after that shootout at Deepdale. Raul scored two penalties in that and also scored one away at Birmingham this season in the previous round. His penalty record is fantastic and we’ll get onto the topic of who should take it later on, what matters in the end is that the penalty is converted and he did just that.

A first win on the road

We were yet to win a game away from the Cottage and with our home form of late being so spectacular, it was a slight concern whether we’d be able to replicate the performance levels on the road, particularly after a fairly lacklustre second half performance at Portman Road a few weeks ago, follow by the disappointing cup performance in Preston.

Thankfully on this occasion we gave the travelling fans three points to take home and finally a feeling of satisfaction on the journey back. With Manchester City up next at The Etihad, it was really important for us to get our first win on the road here, and hopefully we take some of this confidence to make it a tough game for City. We all know how capable we are at the Cottage so a good run away from home could really bolster our chances of a high finish in the league this season.

Sixth place is a brilliant position to be at this stage, particularly with a couple of tough fixtures in the next few weeks. Add to this the fact that we’ve matched our highest ever points tally in the opening six games of a Premier League season and Fulham fans can hope for a promising season ahead. We seem to struggle away quite often, with only four wins away from home in the league last season, so we have to aim to improve on that, with this game potentially being the kickstart.

Negatives 

Pereira penalty strop?

Andreas Pereira did very well to win us a penalty in the second half of the game, which ended up being the winner, but he wasn’t so happy. Raul took the penalty off him and scored, but Pereira was nowhere to be seen in the celebrations. 

When Raul took the ball to take the penalty, Pereira seemed furious as he wanted to take it. From what I’ve heard, Andreas was the designated penalty taker, despite Raul’s incredible record from the spot. Did Pereira have the right to be annoyed at the penalty being taken from him? Arguably, yes. But not to the extent that he was. He just won a penalty which in the end won us the game, also garnering him an assist. To not celebrate with your teammates because you wanted the goal yourself is frankly, quite childish. Some might say he hasn’t done enough to warrant himself taking a penalty, and it would be very difficult to argue against Raul’s 36 goals from 38 penalties, in fact the last one he missed came in the 2019/20 season, so it’s clear to see why he wanted to take it.

Andreas was then subbed off in the 69th minute, and he strolled off like a kid with his head down, clearly aggravated, despite the fact that his team are 1-0 up in a tough game and he contributed to the only goal. I don’t think there was enough reason to be animated about it, I’m sure Marco will have spoken to him and any issues would be sorted by now but winning the penalty was the only real highlight of his game and this puts a negative tint on that.

Chance creation struggles

With the clean sheet helping massively, the lack of chance creation from open play thankfully didn’t affect the result, but it could be something we need to improve on, particularly away from home. 

We had a measly 0.38 expected goals from open play, which somehow managed to top Forest’s 0.27, in a bit of a snooze-fest game for a neutral. Only two shots on target (one being the penalty) causes concern. This may be down partly to the nature of the game yesterday but if we want to improve our away form then we need to create more as well. It seemed like at Ipswich we didn’t create enough in the second half either so this is my main worry at this moment in time. 

However, with the strength of the defence as mentioned earlier, if we can continue to concede fewer goals the reliance on the attacking players to create won’t be as high, again we’re yet to concede more than a single goal in a match this season so one or two goals is more likely to get us three points than it was in previous seasons, as seen in this game. The win is what matters and that’s exactly what we got so let’s keep moving forward after this great start to the season.