Women prepare for Cottage clash as men’s team struggles away

Aston Villa 3-1 Fulham

How many times have the women's team played at Craven Cottage? Over the last 50 years, many women have donned the white shirts associated with the West London club – but they have rarely played at Craven Cottage.

But now's your chance. You can see them on Sunday at 2.30pm when they entertain the Arsenal Women's Academy in our favourite riverside stadium. Tickets here on the Fulham FC website.

Last November, I was one of more than 3,000 spectators in the Johnny Haynes Stand who watched the women's team take on the mighty Wimbledon.

The atmosphere was wonderful and the match had a generous helping of flair and excitement. True, as I pointed out at the time, there was 'no rolling around, no diving, no pressurising the referee'. Maybe some bad habits are not catching.

I certainly got my £5 worth and the many youngsters who paid £1 for admission had a whale of a time.

Start to the season

Unlike their male counterparts, the Women have had an excellent start to the present season. They recently beat Actonians in an FA Cup qualifier to advance into the First Round. It was a hard-fought victory, settled by penalties. Goalkeeper Ellie Parker made a hat-trick of saves.

In a period when some ticket prices are ridiculously high, I am delighted to say that admission will cost no more than it did a year ago. Need I say more?

Whites and their woes

Many weeks have passed since Fulham achieved an away victory in the Premier League.

It was way back in mid-August when they embarrassed Everton. Subsequently they have experienced three draws, plus defeats at Manchester City and Tottenham.

That meant it was not the best time to visit Aston Villa. Unai Emery's players were on an unbeaten run of 12 home matches in the Premier League having already defeated Fulham on the neutral turf of Orlando during the summer.

Supporters who had travelled to Villa could at least take heart from seeing Adama Traore on the bench. Hamstring problems had kept him out of contention since early September. The recent injury to Rodrigo Muniz necessitated the recall of Raul Jimenez and Marco Silva preferred Bobby DeCordova-Reid to Harry Wilson.

VAR to the rescue

For the second consecutive week, Fulham needed VAR to get them out of trouble. Referee Simon Hooper deemed that Timothy Castagne had handled the ball – but the official revoked the penalty after being directed to the monitor.

The Whites have maintained their reputation for starting lethargically and it was no surprise when Villa went ahead in the first half hour. Youri Tielemans's cross was accidentally diverted into the net by Antonee Robinson though Moussa Diaby was well placed to put the ball across the line anyway. Just before halftime, skipper John McGinn scored a creditable solo goal after the luckless Robinson was caught in possession.

Marco Silva was unimpressed, saying: "First half we didn't exist on the ball. We didn't change many things at half-time but told the players they had to express themselves much better."

The manager must wonder why they need his halftime stimulus almost every week. As usual they looked more determined after the interval and Jimenez hit the post but after they squandered a corner Villa broke away (with Robinson again at fault) and McGinn and substitute Leon Bailey set up Ollie Watkins for a simple third.

The match was won – but three Fulham players salvaged a bit of pride.

Harry Wilson, who had replaced Bobby DeCordova-Reid at the interval, sent Robinson clear to give Jimenez that long awaited goal. After his mishaps no supporter would have objected if Antonee had bagged the chance for himself, but he knew how badly his team-mate needed that moment.

It looked as if Carlos Vinicius, who replaced Jimenez at this point, had also scored, which could have endowed the match with a great final passage, but after that infuriating delay the Brazilian was given offside. Somehow Watkins failed to capitalise on an error by Joao Palhinha, so the final score was 3-1.

After the match, Raul Jimenez said: "I want to keep doing this, keep scoring and help the team to get better." Amen to that.