Positives and Negatives: Bournemouth 1-0 Fulham

It was a miserable night on the coast for Fulham as we fell to defeat against Bournemouth. The result means that Andoni Iraola’s side leapfrog us in the table on goal difference with ourselves dropping down to ninth.

An early sucker-punch proved to be the difference between two sides with European aspirations. There aren’t a lot of positive things to say about the game, but what are the main takeaways from the result?

Positives

SBLIG

There wasn’t an awful lot to shout about from a Fulham perspective, but I think Bernd Leno deserves an honourable mention for an astute performance. Fulham never really threatened throughout, but the single-goal scoreline ensured we remained in the game throughout and that’s down to our ever-dependent German. Two crucial saves from Leno as well as a commanding performance from inside the box kept the score line down and the game tight.

Negatives

A nightmare start

Something we’ve managed to eradicate from our game is conceding early, but on Monday night we felt a bit of deja vu thanks to Antonie Semenyo inside the first minute. Timothy Castagne with a sloppy ball into midfield followed by Antonee Robinson getting the ball stuck in his feet gifted the Ghanaian a chance. He still does fantastically to drive forward and curl it into the bottom corner but it’s so frustrating.

In a game of this magnitude, the last thing you want is to effectively start 1-0 down, get the home fans up for it and give yourselves a pedestal to climb so early on. It set the tone for the early stages of the game and we thankfully didnt go 2-0 down when Evanilson hit the bar, Still, it’s very frustrating.

Toothless going forward

An incredibly disappointing performance from Fulham who rarely threatened throughout. Ryan Sessegnon missed a header in the first half, Alex Iwobi had a chance from distance in the second but that was it really. We made it relatively comfortable for Kepa and following on from a fantastic attacking display at Liverpool we whimpered on the coast.

Consistently inconsistent

Just when the passport comes out, it goes back into the cupboard. Fulham’s inability to put a run together is costing us. We remain in the conversation but this felt like a great opportunity to springboard. Results went out favour this weekend and playing an out of form Bournemouth side gave us an opportunity to go six clear of the Cherries, three clear of Brighton and three behind Chelsea, alas it wasn’t to be.

I don’t want to be reactionary after a poor result, but it’s incredibly frustrating that after the magnificent performance against Liverpool we followed it up with the performance on Monday night. We’re still in the Conference League conversation but we desperately need to go on a run of wins we’ve failed to do all season… Onto the SW6 derby.