Defensive disaster earns Summerville winner in miserable 1-0 loss for Fulham

West Ham claim crucial three points in relegation battle; Fulham listless and poor all evening

What is consistency? Cambridge’s Dictionary defines it as “the quality of always behaving or performing in a similar way”. Perhaps Marco Silva ought to tape it somewhere in the Fulham dressing room - today’s setback, a deeply unremarkable 1-0 defeat to relegation-threatened West Ham, demonstrates quite effectively that it is an asset lost on this squad of players. Summerville’s goal, whatever the talents of the player, was a calamitous piece of defending from Leno and Berge, and the football played around it offered a cruel reminder that Fulham can’t sustain their efforts over a significant run of games. Our win over Tottenham, only three days ago, may well have taken place in a fugue state on this evidence…

First Half

Onlookers might have been enticed by the opening minutes of the game, featuring Bowen bustling down the right, finding Castellanos in the centre and the Argentine guide a speculative shot goalwards, forcing Leno into an unwieldy punch away. A nice link-up with Iwobi and Robinson on the left produced a cross that, whilst unthreatening, raised the early excitement, and a few moments later a couple of chances fell at our feet. Berge dispossessing Callum Wilson on the halfway line led to a neat one-two between Chukwueze and King on the right of the box, that the Nigerian tamely put at Hermansen’s lap, and a botched clearance from Todibo let Robinson guide the ball back into the box for King, tucked cleverly between Disasi and Diouf - sadly, he steered his effort wide of the post.

And then, the game fell into a lull. Much of Fulham’s play was decent, but the polish we displayed against Tottenham on the weekend was absent. Perhaps this was a consequence of making so many changes, but the end result was a litany of what-ifs, players piecing together the beginnings of killer moves with a nifty turn, clever touch, insightful pass, only for the next piece in the puzzle to fall flat, and the attack dissipate entirely. Berge and Raul both led promising counter-attacks charging at goal but scuffed passes intended for their wingers’ run. Chukwueze breezed down the right with style, but continually lost King on his radar and gave the defender enough to nullify the thread. King himself was lively, tenacious in his dribbles and movement going forward, but unfortunately lacked the muscle to outgun Disasi and Todibo once he reached the box.

The result was a dearth of actual action in the box for Fulham, and a window of opportunity for the visitors to take initiative in the face of us losing the ball. In some respect this was what the 4-4-2 was designed to do for West Ham - a tough set of defenders, Soucek and Fernandes marshalling the space ahead of them, and the creativity of Bowen and pace of Summerville the tools to quickly work the ball to the Wilson-Castellanos duo both playing up front. Did it work out? Bowen certainly played an intelligent game, keeping an eye on Robinson’s marauding runs and using them to pull our backline apart, and on the other wing Diouf’s speed proved a constant threat for Tete to manage. They won a few set-pieces across the half and certainly wore the shape of a side ready to steal three points away from home.

But this productivity was undone by the execution of the plan, the lethargy that seemed to haunt much of their play. Wan-Bissaka overlapping Bowen produced a combination between the two, laid off by Castellanos upon receiving the cross from the right and seeing Bowen drill a shot into Diop. Other than a nervy wait for VAR to declare Iwobi’s clearance out a non-handball, nothing came of it - the team lacked the energy to get into the box, allowing Bassey and Diop to stand firm and keep the visitors playing well out of Leno’s danger zone.

With Berge and Cairney working nicely to move deeper and support the backline, West Ham found themselves shunted sidewards - the movement of the strikers needed to be quicker to offer the killer angle, but seldom was, and the few times moves fell into shooting distance they were wasted. Bowen wasted a lively counterattack by taking a good pass from Castellanos to a free right channel and smacking it wide of goal. Later, the captain did very well to drag Robinson out of position on the touchline, allowing Wan Bissaka to overlap, similarly taking Bassey away from the strikers he was covering… but the move was annulled when Wilson’s shot sailed comfortably over the bar.

There was a bit of excitement at the very end of the half though. Following Wilson’s missed effort, a move down the left through Robinson let Cairney move the ball through to the centre, where King latched onto it in space. He flew towards the box at speed, but as he tried to pull the trigger got impeded by the foot of Fernandes, who’d come across to stop the move. The referee gave a foul, irking both sets of players - Fulham wanted a second yellow, the midfielder booked earlier for holding back Iwobi on a break, whilst the visitors didn’t believe King should even have been awarded a free kick. Raul spanked the kick straight into the wall, but more egregious was the corner that followed, where a short routine eventually saw Tete bend the ball into the box, King spin brilliantly away from the congregation to finally create a chance in the heart of the goal… and put his effort too low and straight, giving Hermansen the chance to be the hero for the visitors, which he duly took with a fine save. We’d run out of time - the half-time whistle followed his heroics.

Second Half

A dry 0-0 for the first 45 minutes, but again the kick-off instigated a quick set of play. From a Bowen corner, West Ham saw a Soucek header tipped over the bar by a sprawling dive from Leno. Moments later, Iwobi seized an opportunity to utilise space behind a wayward Wan Bissaka, cruising down the left towards the goal. His ball into the middle was poor, but Soucek failed to cut it out, and it travelled slowly to Cairney, poised to shoot. He tried to strike the ball, but saw his kick impeded by Castellanos, a la King earlier - the referee awarded the penalty. Yet VAR came to West Ham’s rescue - quite blatantly, Cairney had kicked the Argentine, and no degree of refereeing discretion could save us from losing the spot-kick.

West Ham were bustling around with more intent though, and some warning signs were laid for Fulham. Summerville, who’d been quiet in the first half, started doing more to put his pace into action, cutting inside to cause trouble around the pitch. This had the combined effect of winning set-pieces for the visitors, always a danger given the physicality of the side, and freeing up other players to use the space he created, shifting the focus of play more into our half. A nervy spell saw West Ham force us into a series of scuffed clearances, the last of which let Soucek take Iwobi’s hoof, play it into Wan-Bissaka, who pumped a pass into Bowen, and saw the captain turn Bassey and fire a low shot that Leno had to dive to save (though it was marginally offside). Minutes later, Summerville cut inside away from Tete and crossed a ball into the box - it arched beautifully behind our defence but Wilson and Soucek couldn’t work out who was striking the ball and it sailed out of play.

We needed changes, and Silva had them - Cairney and Jimenez had faded from relevance in the game, and though King was unfortunate to join them the promise of Smith Rowe, Muniz and Bobb being on the pitch together was an enticing one, particularly with Iwobi moved back to the centre. But West Ham had also switched their approach, an ineffective Wilson taken off for defensive midfielder Magassa. Our time on the ball now met a tougher approach, with a player fixed to the DM role to allow Soucek and Fernandes the flexibility to move around more fluidly, in turn producing more moments of interplay between the frontline of Summerville, Castellanos and Bowen.

But we’d realise this hardship later. Instead, misfortune at either end of the pitch produced a lead for West Ham in entirely avoidable circumstances, and a reminder that Premier League football can’t be taken for granted. Chukwueze’s creativity produced a corner, which on Iwobi’s second attempt flew over everyone towards the far post… yet Smith Rowe, needing only a tap-in to open the scoring, put an uncoordinated touch straight into the path of Hermansen’s welcome hands. And right afterwards, disaster: a ball forward from Fernandes bounced towards Leno, too far for Bowen to reach, was met with a loose, vacant touch from the keeper. The world expected him to boot it clear, or pass it elsewhere - he instead backed away, confusing Bassey and offering an opportunity to Bowen. Ever persistent, the England man quickly nipped in and dinked it to Summerville, who travelled goalward, took a touch to move it out of the incoming Berge’s path, spotted Leno miles off his line and curled the ball into the open net from outside the box. The lead was theirs - the shame was ours.

Perhaps the goal would offer motivation for a comeback? Muniz managed to win a free kick against Disasi in a suitable position, and though it only led to Iwobi slicing the ball over with a volley, we were seeing more of the ball than prior to the goal. Yet our momentum was deflated really effectively by West Ham, who had Magassa on the pitch disrupting play and helping the team shut down the space available. Of course, just as revelatory was the substandard football Fulham were playing. Bobb showed promise on the right, using his intuition to feed Tete an overlap that led to an opportunity for Muniz, albeit in the form of a cross he headed over. But the others struggled to impart a real footprint on the shape of the game. Smith Rowe had a poor cameo, barely able to connect his passes coherently and lacking in spark. The service into the box was lacklustre, deliveries too short to clear the first man or too deep to produce anything to test the keeper. It was fodder for Todibo, Disasi and co to clear - even with Sessegnon and Castagne introduced later in the game, Muniz seldom had a chance to get on the ball in the box.

Castagne, to his credit, injected a little energy into the game, turning a head-tennis situation from a corner into a shooting opportunity and firing some of the only decent balls into the box during a tiresome stoppage time period. Hermansen stood tall to repel them both, pushing Castagne’s bending effort away from the target with a strong hand, and leaping well under pressure to stop Bassey, and then Muniz from the follow-up, from eking out a late equaliser. West Ham were the stronger side though - they managed the game well, bringing on an army of substitutes late on to wrestle us out of the contest, eating time away with runs into our half and cheap free-kicks, and it was enough to see out the lengthy stoppages and earn themselves a crucial three points.

Can West Ham beat the drop?

We’ll drop the negativity for a moment to focus on the visitors, who are fighting a tense relegation battle (against two sides competing in Europe, no less!) and truly earnt their three points. As egregious as the Leno/Berge antics were, the making of the goal was in what the team did across the game. Nuno deserves credit for his management - he recognised that the tactics West Ham started the game with weren’t working, took a poor Wilson off to rebalance the shape, and revitalised Summerville, whose creativity and energy produced the match-winning moment. Every goal, through varying degrees, is capitalising off someone’s mistake - today’s was simply more obvious a set of errors.

There’s a lot of worry to be had for the teams in this battle - West Ham were marked as dead and buried by many earlier in the season, but whilst Fulham are thankfully out of sight of the relegation chaos my fears were never allayed by the Hammers’ poor start. Nuno is a resolute manager that worked excellently with squads at Wolves and Nottingham Forest - he has turned a shambolic defence into a competent one, certainly one capable of sterilising our attack today, and whilst they aren’t quite the Barcelona of a decade-or-so ago going forward, Summerville and Bowen were a real handful working their trade around the frontline. Magassa was the balancing act needed to make it all click - everyone on the team, be it Fernandes, Soucek or Castellanos, looked better with him on the pitch. And with a team playing with a touch of confidence, you get goalkeepers that keep clean sheets. Hermansen had a brilliant evening, with vital saves from King and Castagne in either half the highlights of a solid display, and if he can keep his hands as firm as today, the team will be in good stead moving forward in their fight for survival.

Lenoh-no

However, the elephant in the room remains the Fulham performance, or lack thereof. We were passive and apathetic across the game, to the point that a West Ham side we are supposedly much better than were able to wrestle themselves into ascendency in the game, and a truly rancid piece of defending gifted our opponents a lead, one we never seriously looked capable of overturning. It’s not the first time we’ve felt this following a Fulham match - there are far too many matches where the squad look ordinary and mediocre, often right after top outings.

Let’s start with the goal, the nadir of the night. Leno has had a few question marks raised over his set-piece competency, and horrible moments like this don’t help his case. You wonder why he’d saunter out of goal if he wasn’t going to completely eliminate the danger - the keeper absolutely has to take control if he’s going to leave his box, and he instead creates the crisis at the back. Berge also needs to look in the mirror here - the point of a defensive midfielder is to contribute defensively, and he charges in and out of the play to such a degree that Summerville only has Leno’s position to worry about for the remainder of the move. We’d wobbled earlier in the half, with Cairney struggling to match the increased West Ham tempo and Robinson and Tete given some tests on the wings with the enthusiasm of Summerville and Bowen, but the goal changed the nature of the game, and settled Nuno’s team into a defensive situation they were all-too-happy to adopt.

There were broader problems in attack. Berge really struggled to energise the midfield, which with an ailing Cairney as his partner made it quite easy for West Ham to absorb. The passing was really poor - Chukwueze’s inconsistency made it incredibly hard for his teammates to work with, Iwobi’s radar wasn’t on song being so far out on the wings, and whilst Robinson had a few lively runs his end-product was rarely worth the damage it caused at the other end, where Bowen could drill himself into Bassey’s exposed area. Raul and King worked hard but were asked to do too much against much stronger opponents, and Bobb aside the substitutes couldn’t apply the composure to work around a tough defence fortifying their territory. The result? An ugly zero in our goal tally.

Maybe we should offer a slight defence? The team are juggling injuries - we lost the magic of Wilson to this (who might have scored at least one of the chances Hermansen stopped) - and most sides struggle in the face of a wave of changes. Diop had another decent match, as did Bassey, and whilst the team weren’t great tonight had Leno’s mind lapse not taken place the score could justifiably have finished 0-0 - West Ham did not humiliate us by any means. But this just makes the situation more frustrating - in a season that may yet represent the best chance mid-table sides have at clawing themselves into European football, we continually fail to seize the initiative, and look set to let sides like Brentford, Everton, Bournemouth, Sunderland claim a place our squad are more than capable of seizing for themselves.

With only nine games to go, it’s make or break time for Fulham in the league - and perhaps Marco Silva as well. Round 5 of the FA Cup this weekend may potentially be our final chance to win a trophy with Silva at the helm - one can only hope the players were so lackadaisical today to save their A-game for this, because Southampton will eye an upset if our football matches tonight’s miserly display.