More misfortune for King as Fulham collapse at Villa Park
Aston Villa's 3-1 comeback came after a Cash handball went unsanctioned with Fulham leading.
On 20 October 2022, Fulham beat Aston Villa 3-0, a resolute victory over Steven Gerrard’s abject corpse of a team. He was promptly sacked, Unai Emery was given the chance to return to the Premier League, and Fulham have been subservient to Villa in each subsequent meeting. Today’s 3-1 defeat at Villa Park was no different, as player fitness, officiating decisions and even basic footballing competence deserted us on a sordid afternoon for the club, where a promising opening spell morphed into a disastrous second half.
First half
Anyone expecting a Sunday snooze was corrected within the opening minutes. Fulham started brightly, looking to seize upon the nerves troubling Villa’s early season performances. A smart combination from King and Sessegnon forced Konsa to divert the latter’s cross out for a corner. Lukic swung a cross in, which was met by Jimenez, cruising along the six-yard box before flicking his head under the ball to guide it goalwards, into the open chasm by the far post. An excellent start for Fulham, which even survived a bogus VAR review (McGinn pushed Berge first, Berge is taller and stronger than McGinn, McGinn should read Newton’s Third Law of Motion!)
Raul’s chance to bask in the sun was cruelly cut short, however - a injury in the commotion of the goal saw him forced off early, his former Wolves teammate Adama Traore replacing him as an unconventional striker in Muniz’s absence. The long pause gave Villa a chance to regroup, swerving the immediate ferocity our early goal might have caused around the ground. They became direct quickly, their four advanced players taking the ball and charging into Fulham territory. Some smartly-timed interventions were needed - wingers Rogers and Guessand needed one-a-piece from Andersen and Bassey to stop their runs into the box amounting to anything. Their high pressing and positioning here frayed our concentration. Bassey, not for the first time, lost possession in precarious positions around the back, and was fortunate McGinn curled a subsequent one-on-one chance high and wide.
This was far from Villa dominance, though. Traore’s physical presence was unnerving Mings and Konsa, and with Villa bodies moving forward we were finding pockets of space to play ourselves into. King basked in the sun, galloping into channels, fizzing through the game with verve and positivity. A run from the left, set up by Sessegnon, saw him breeze away from Bogarde and cut inside, only to end the move with a tame effort. With Iwobi sat deeper, Wilson and Castagne combining well on the right and Lukic driving Fulham forward in the middle, Villa’s initial response was being repelled and overturned by our attacking flair - another attack, albeit marginally offside, needed Konsa’s timely block to stop Wilson turning a Castagne aerial pass into a goal.
Once again, King found himself at the epicentre of controversy. A nice combination from Castagne and Wilson found Traore, who slipped a pass through a scrambling defence for King. Well ahead of everyone, the starlet reached the box, where Martinez was surging out of goal. He knocked the ball to Martinez’s left and went to ground as the keeper’s feet swept into his own. Reckless from the Argentine… but the referee was uninterested, and booked King for simulation. Such decisions sting, but removing our affinity for Joshua highlights buckling knees before Martinez can take him out; enough evidence to suggest a dive.
Eager to atone for his mistake, King set off on another move moments later, taking smart touches to get past Konsa and Cash, dribbling into the box, cutting inside and planting a shot to Martinez’s left, only for the ball to meet the trailing arm of Cash, and fly away for a corner. A blatant handball, denying a clear goal-scoring opportunity… but not according to the officials, who waved away the appeal. If the first decision irked the players, this one infuriated them - King was again robbed of a chance to score his first goal, and double the advantage in a game Fulham were the stronger side in.
The game went on though, and Fulham didn’t, still stewing at the injustice of the non-handball. After some pleasant passing sequences ended in scant little - a scuffed chance off-target for Wilson on the turn the closest we came to scoring. It was Villa who decided to read the room, and used an injury to Mings to tweak the approach, introducing Pau Torres to revitalise the defence. This recalibrated everything - with Torres on the pitch, suddenly Villa were managing their final third properly, shunting our attacking runs into dead ends, and crucially working the ball efficiently and effectively through the team to their attackers.
We’d had warnings throughout the half. Bassey had survived yet another scare from a Martinez goal kick, losing Rogers and fortunate the Villa man couldn’t reach the pass. After Andersen misjudged another long pass from Digne, the Nigerian again lost his man - Watkins had seen the ball bounce and struck the ball in the air, looping the ball over a rushing Leno and levelling the game. It was a terrible way to lose the lead, and brought Villa back into a game they’d largely been second-best in. Even as we made the better moves towards the end of the half - a splendid dink from Traore could have been productive if Lukic’s touch wasn’t ridiculously heavy and wayward - Villa had salvaged their afternoon, and lifted both themselves and their fans for the half-time break.
Second half
1-1 is not an abject failure though, even if we should have scored more. Whatever injustice, wasted opportunities or silly errors had blighted us, an entire half of football should have been enough of a platform for Silva and the team to take the game back to Villa. Yet our hosts were ready to fire up their season. Harvey Elliott, an ineffective passenger for much of the game, was withdrawn for livewire Emi Buendia, as direct, brutal attacking seemed the direction Emery desired for his team.
Watkins had already sparked into life, but the change brought Rogers fully into the game. The pair, with Buendia fizzing around the pitch and Guessand charging down the right, ran rampant in the opening minutes, frenzying Fulham’s defence. McGinn and Bogarde moved up a gear, pressing Fulham’s shell-shocked midfield and snatching the ball from us with ease. We were caught off guard, and it was Traore that made the fatal error, dithering on the ball with Bogarde breathing down his neck. The Dutchman wrestled the ball off him, letting Buendia feed the ball to a surging McGinn, who kept ahead of a listless Lukic, arched his body and smashed a shot low and to the left of the goal, well away from a sprawling Leno.
At 2-1 down, Fulham needed to kick themselves into action and use the ball to keep Villa at bay. The exact opposite happened. Emery’s side, again identifying the conditions in the game, threw themselves at us from the kick off, forcing us into a series of rushed passes. Within seconds they had it again - Rogers moved it down to Digne on the left, the fullback played it for Watkins, comfortably ahead of Castagne and quicker than an ambling Andersen, and the cross, via a Rogers deflection, landed favourably for Buendia to plant home. 3-1 to Villa - Fulham’s afternoon had imploded.
Games like this, with a wealth of action and drama, need control in the critical moments. Fulham’s had completely evaporated, at both ends. It was almost a fourth goal for Villa as they again pressed intensely from the kick off, Andersen having his pocket picked from Watkins and narrowly avoiding giving away a penalty in his attempt to retrieve the ball. Then, when the game offered us a lifeline, Fulham fluffed their lines. A questionable pass from Pau Torres led to a manic pass from Martinez, cut out by Traore. The forward quickly fed the ball to Lukic, free in the box and in a scoreable position. Instead, a tame, thoughtless effort slid off his foot, and Konsa was granted the opportunity to throw his body in front of the shot for a corner, which did nothing but earn Bassey a yellow card for stopping the Villa counter-attack it led to.
As the dust settled from such a chaotic opening to the half, the realisation sank in. From a winning position, Fulham had shipped three goals in a 20-minute period - two in quick succession - and allowed Villa the terms to dictate the shape of the game. If the officiating controversy distracted Fulham, this turn of events made us wallow, lowing the energy of the whole team and letting Villa settle into a comfortable pattern, letting us play a few timid passes in front of the team, using their physicality to snatch the ball off our attack and then launch the ball into the space drawing our entire time forward opened up.
It was a dismal watch, in truth. Fulham churned through the motions, slowly making their way down the wings and firing crosses into the box for Villa’s defenders to clear, though their quality decayed as time went on. We had bodies across the pitch but they failed to ignite the spark we had in the first half - King being smothered by McGinn certainly hurt this, but Berge’s sluggishness, Lukic’s rudderlessness in the final third, and some truly wretched cameos from Kevin and Smith-Rowe meant we laboured through the rest of the game, blasting nothing balls into the box and sometimes failing to even make it that far. Robinson, and later Chukwueze, offered glimpses of something better for Fulham - the latter even taking initiative and creating chances from in front of Villa’s defensive wall - but by this point Villa’s own substitutes arrived, the likes of Kamara and Lindelof steeling a now-confident unit, and the game petered out into nothing, the final whistle putting us out of our misery.
The refereeing misfortune continues
How did we lose this game? I think it’s important to caveat the inevitable gloom we feel in moments like this with a discussion about the misfortune shrouding the entire afternoon. Jimenez going off injured within minutes, on a day we didn’t have Muniz available, meant we had to throw plan A out of the window. King had two penalty decisions - one beyond egregious - go against him. All these things, which might have let a confident Fulham score two or three beyond Villa in a weak moment, contributed to Villa’s ability to claw themselves back into the game.
We should take a moment to consider the officiating for a second, actually. King was robbed of a goal at Chelsea, a game which also had a contentious penalty involving a handball eerily similar to today’s one, yet the opposite call was made. We got an official apology for that debacle, and we may well get one today, but it doesn’t do a lot when the result stays the same - Fulham’s hard work in the match annulled and the opposition gifted the opportunity to comeback from a more advantageous position. Is this good enough, in a league with the resources and wealth of the Premier League? Inevitably this misfortune will balance out - there will be game-critical decisions that benefit Fulham at some point this year - but this does little for King, who still waits for his first Fulham goal, and for the club, whose two defeats this year come after questionable calls have taken the wind from their sails.
Dismal defending for Fulham
But let’s make no mistake - Fulham blew the game today. Defensively we were appalling, from early into the first half. I was pleased with Andersen at first but he couldn’t sustain his performance, losing track the ball for the opener, and then seemingly losing his mind throughout the second half, at sea whenever Watkins came close. Bassey, meanwhile, forgot how to pass a ball - a shocking set of mistakes are at his feet today, and his physical prowess didn’t get him out of jail against Villa’s rapid attackers. Such flimsy defending allowed Villa to trample them in the second half, and put us on edge for the rest of the game. Castagne was no replacement for Tete today, either. Several attacks happened directly because the wing-back couldn’t keep track of Watkins or Rogers, requiring Andersen to try and sort the issue out - he’s improved a lot, but he doesn’t have the assurance Tete provides to the back four. He might also consider himself fortunate there wasn’t more scrutiny over his late shin-busting tackle on Digne in the second half.
I think the greatest problem was in midfield, though. Lukic and Berge can be a great pairing when in form, but today they exhibited the worst of their traits, playing a sluggish, mediocre match without thought to the terrain of the match before them. Berge is a terrific defensive rock but Villa played the game around him, using the long balls to directly take on the defence and upping the tempo with their forwards to run beyond him. Lukic had to be sharper to support him and the team, and he really wasn’t, constantly behind the pace of opposition attacks and failing to relieve pressure around the back, most egregiously for McGinn’s goal.
You really feel the difference when we’re chasing the game, too. Bogarde was dynamic and sharp, winning the ball quickly with a sharp sense of where the ball was. McGinn was like a terrier, turning a slow start into a rambunctious, general-like approach. Conversely, Lukic was pedestrian, a few decent passes down the right a highlight of a sterile second-half, and Berge had precious little to do, bypassed by his own centre-backs in an attempt to inject life into the game. McGinn scored a phenomenal long-shot - Lukic wasted an opportunity right in front of goal by smacking it straight into a defender. Villa’s midfield rose to the occasion - Fulham’s wilted in it.
It could have been so much better. King - dive aside - was sublime, demonstrating exactly why Silva has placed so much faith in him. He takes the ball into dangerous areas and invites his teammates to do the same, winning territory and generating momentum in one move. With Villa struggling to react we saw some decent passes, some nice collaboration down the left with Sessegnon and a deeper Iwobi, similar on the right with Wilson and Castagne. Even Traore, so often the scapegoat, was responsible for some decent passes in an unfamiliar role, and had some success linking with the midfield from the position. But it needed much, much more to beat a team like Villa, even in their poor form, and the lack of urgency in the second half was a real frustration. I’ve already said the substitutes weren’t great but it’s a little alarming to see such poor football from players that should be itching to get into the side.
Villa resurgent
Perhaps we should offer some credit to Aston Villa, who did win the match and flexed some serious muscle over us in the second half. For as poor as things have been at Villa Park so far this season there are some excellent footballers in their team, and their quality made the difference today. Watkins finish for the equaliser was outstanding - it should not be taken for granted that a striker successfully executes the run, positioning and execution for his strike, and years of video games and goal compilations mask how difficult such moves are. Rogers has drawn ire from his own fans today but both on the left and in the centre he caused us a lot of concern. Buendia had a super-sub role from the bench, and I thought Emery should be pleased with Guessand too, who ran throughout the whole match and even joined the backline when Villa needed to sit back. Arguably Malen coming on for him gave Fulham more opportunities than they’d had for the rest of the half!
Pau Torres was a game-changer for them - he organised the defence more than the languid, static Mings was able to, which focused everything and gave Fulham pause for thought in their approach to goal. It settled down the full-backs and meant Konsa wasn’t having to throw himself out of position to keep Fulham away from goal, having a ripple effect across the team. The backline getting control of themselves brought the best out of Bogarde, who retrieved the ball more effectively, and McGinn, who seized momentum and led the charge for the rest of the game from the middle.
It’s a tale as old as time: work together effectively, and you can do great things. Villa sorted out their mishaps and their defending, pressing and ultimately attacking opened up for them - they scored their goals, claimed their win and finally have a kickstart to their league campaign. Fulham’s fate is less positive - the table doesn’t really matter in such early stages of the season, but surely some ire will be had at a game like today falling apart, leaving us in a congested mid-table position. That’s the danger with Fulham - you start to hope, and then we shoot ourselves in the foot and seemingly tell ourselves the gap between us and teams competing in Europe is insurmountable. The dream lives on though - Silva must capture the irrepressible form of King and lavish it upon the team, where perhaps the return of Robinson and the introduction of Chukwueze can ensure this disappointment does not recur upon our trip to the south coast next weekend.