Fulham 1-2 Aston Villa
On Saturday, Fulham supporters entered Craven Cottage with high hopes. We were encouraged by the previous week's dismissal of Bournemouth and the emergence of Rodrigo Muniz as a confident and effective striker.
While our opponents Aston Villa had recently suffered a loss of form. Could we expect a victory over a club from the top six to rank with the defeat of the Arsenal?
Understandably, Marco Silva retained the starting line-up from the Bournemouth match – and supporters were pleased to see Alex Iwobi, Calvin Bassey and Adama Traore on the touchlines waiting to enter the fray. Yet over the course of the match, Fulham underperformed. That is not to decry the players' contribution to an eventful and exciting match, but they somehow lacked the extra conviction necessary for victory.
Whirlwind
Villa began like a whirlwind. Within three minutes Ollie Watkins had the ball in the net but the goal was promptly disallowed for offside.
Then Leon Bailey eluded Antonee Robinson and hit the crossbar.
At the other end, Bobby DeCordova-Reid was sent flying by Paul Torres in a manner that would have merited a penalty in earlier seasons. Having escaped sanction, the defender floored him again in a subsequent challenge. If only the referee Lewis Smith had shown the same tolerance later towards Joao Palhinha instead of awarding him his 10th yellow card of the campaign, which means that he will miss the next two matches.
When Tim Ream rounded the keeper Emi Martinez and put the ball in the net he had to wait while VAR pondered – eventually the decision went against him.
The first valid goal came in the 23rd minute and, as so often, resulted from the Whites' casual attitude in defence. There was no good reason for Antonee Robinson to throw the ball towards his own penalty area, enabling Jacob Ramsay to set up a simple goal for Watkins. Robinson nearly atoned by fashioning an opportunity for Muniz, but the Brazilian delivered a soft header into the hands of Martinez.
Mild booing
The Villa goalie soon realised that he could exploit the laxity of the tentative referee with time-wasting and a general disregard for the rules.
Another offside decision caused further delays prompting both sets of fans to unite in chorusing their dislike of VAR. The process certainly added nothing of value to the match. The Hammersmith End also indulged in mild booing when halftime came, but the target was the officials rather than the players. Bernd Leno had just kept Fulham in the game with a marvellous save from Youi Tielemans.
After the interval Silva replaced Willian with Alex Iwobi, which gave the team a lift but did not increase the creativity. Meanwhile, Villa doubled their lead. It took just two passes starting from the halfway line for Ollie Watkins to slip the ball past Leno. Issa Diop was left a helpless spectator.
The last section of the match, with Harry Wilson in place of DeCordova-Reid, saw a decent fightback and once again Muniz was the star.
Tom Cairney gave Robinson a long ball to chase and the defender somehow managed a low centre for Muniz to run onto and place beyond the reach of Martinez. Other, probably easier, chances followed but without adding to the score. Substitute Adama Traore could have rescued a point in added time, but Martinez had the last laugh. As he generally does.
The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.
