Positives and Negatives: Fulham 1-2 Chelsea

In what felt like an even more heated contest than previous seasons have offered, our latest SW6 derby at Craven Cottage proved to be a fiery affair, which ultimately panned out to be an almost identical outing to that of our dramatic boxing Day win at Stamford Bridge, just sadly in our case the away team came out victors again. There’s lots to unpack in an eventful match on both sides of the coin so let’s get into what was fundamentally disappointing result.

Positives

Leno, Tete and Sess

This particular trio of players were unreal in a tough fixture for different reasons. Until the final 10 minutes, Bernd Leno was the only thing keeping Chelsea at bay with impressive saves time after time denying the opposition. Not only did he produce impressive saves, he also provided safe hands firmly catching the ball and parrying into safe areas when required, it could so easily have been another heroic day for our number one.

Kenny Tete was on another level, considering this was his first start after a long period out of the game with injury, he came back in as if he’d never left, bossing that right hand side at the back. Timothy Castagne has given us many positive displays, particularly going forward, but Tete’s body strength gives him another defensive level and I just feel so much more reassured when he’s safeguarding our net, for what it’s worth he kept a clean sheet for the 78 minutes he played.

Finally, it was an absolutely joy watching Ryan Sessegnon, who had Marc Cucurella on toast throughout the entire match. His strength and tenacity got the better of the right back and he proved to be a real handful with another consistent reliable performance and a mighty fine assist to show for it, taking him to three goals and two assists in his last nine Premier League outings, of which he has only played 339 minutes! A great showing from these chaps that deserves recognition.

A ferocious first half

When all is said and done after the final whistle, it’s easy to forget the events of the first half when things don’t go your way, a period which was one of Fulham’s much stronger displays of the season. The high-pressure and pressing was excellent with Andreas Pereira really showing his quality, putting in a tenacious display that you just couldn’t imagine being produced from our absent Emile Smith Rowe.

Overall we dominated the play and more than deserved to go into half time in the lead with a very tidy finish from Alex Iwobi. The energy levels were there to see and we created lots of chances that could have, and in all honestly, should have, seen the game out before the break. A fantastic defensive display saw Chelsea really only have one decent chance in the half through Reece James and overall we controlled the game, a game of two halves it would seem.

Negatives

Strategically out-managed by subs again

Just as we’ve seen Marco Silva make perfect subs that change games to seal the deal for Fulham, we’ve probably had slightly more incidences of negative game management when it comes to tactical in game changes. Enzo Maresca responded well to his team’s dismal first half display, and his half-time changes bringing on Malo Gusto and Jadon Sancho added more dynamism and energy into the Chelsea side and while we held on for a large portion of the half, we were outplayed and exposed on numerous occasions with Leno being forced into action more often than he should have been.

The changes didn’t come from Silva until late in the half and this hesitancy to mix things up earlier in the second half has been quite consistent across the season. Alex Iwobi should have been taken off far earlier in the match for Harry Wilson in my opinion, but the worse one for me was taking off Sasa Lukic for Tom Cairney. I can understand the logic of wanting to look after the ball more, but we lost all defensive hold in the middle of the pitch and it felt like we were exposed on the edge of the box on more than one occasion where I would except Lukic’s aggressive style of play to nip in the bud sooner. Castange’s marking is a bit too lax for the Chelsea opener too which isn’t great considering he had a fresh set of legs.

I-woe-bi

Yes pointing out the man who scored the potential match-winner, in excellent style might I add, seems strange especially as it was one of the high moments of the match for Fulham, but outside of that, I just felt Iwobi’s performance was woeful. Time and time again he gave the ball away, delivered poor crosses or was just wasteful. The 20 minutes before the goal left me infuriated, I forgave him for the brilliant finish, but then again as the game went on, particularly in the second half, watching his nonchalant jogs to the edge of the Fulham box when Chelsea were threatening on the ball, or the half-arsed closing of opposition players across the pitch really vexed me today. There were also several opportunities for him to score in the Chelsea box in the first half that he didn’t connect with because he seemed to be ball watching. Don’t get me wrong there were other players that didn’t cover themselves in glory such as Adama Traore off the bench, but I just left feeling like he could have left much more on the pitch.

There for the taking

The second half display was just poor overall and we were sitting ducks. To have two halves of such different magnitudes as this was dissapointing and this defeat means the closing of any hopes for a 7th place or upward finish as we now sit nine points adrift of Aston Villa. It was a big opportunity missed against a Chelsea side devoid of confidence who struggled to gain a point from Ipswich at home in their previous outing, and you can’t help but feel this was a big opportunity that we should have been able to grab with both hands after our difficult defeat to Bournemouth last Monday.

For all the disappointing feelings, perhaps on another day if we had Rodrigo Muniz coming off the bench instead of Carlos Vinicius, and Emile Smith Rowe was at least another options, perhaps we could have seen the game out in stronger fashion and those changes may have been made earlier.

While it hurts losing to our rivals, especially in the final 10 minutes of the game, no one can take away that amazing match at Stamford Bridge earlier in the season that was 45 years in the making. Southampton away is the perfect tonic for us to lick our wounds and go full throttle and we couldn’t ask for a better fixture than Saints who sit bottom of the league. The target of eighth is clear now, and we can pick up that potential European conversation again after next Saturday. Come down to St Mary’s if you can and let’s back the boys with a sold out away day on the South Coast!