Player Ratings: Fulham 1-2 Crystal Palace

We take a look back at a late defeat for the Whites at the Cottage

Fulham fell to a second successive defeat in the Premier League in a tight affair with Crystal Palace. While the Whites looked like a team relying on individual quality amid wave after wave of possession, Palace showed the benefit of coherency and focusing on playing as a strong unit. Here are the ratings.

Bernd Leno

Really not much to go off for Leno, who had weirdly little to do considering Palace matched us for shots for the majority of the game. Made a really nice save just before Palace’s winner, diving to the feet of Uche to prevent him from scoring. For the goals, it was poor defending that resulted in two efforts going beyond Leno’s reach, which is fair enough. 6/10

Kenny Tete

Fantastic defensively, proving what I said in the week about the difference in defensive style to Castagne. Some 13 combined clearances/tackles/interceptions compared to three from the Belgian shows Tete’s proactive nature, specifically in the way he defended so well one on one, especially against Mitchell who was frequently high and wide on the Palace left. Did well when allowed forward with a couple of good crosses but often found himself deeper with the advanced positioning of Castagne on the opposite side. 7/10

Joachim Andersen

An off day. I don’t think you can lay any blame at his door for Palace’s first; he was following his man as he should, but mistakes came after that for sure. Was lucky not to give away an obvious foul on Clyne right on the edge of the box in the first half. While Guehi was originally King’s man (hilarious mismatch), Andersen is the man contesting for the ball and ultimately loses out to Guehi for the decisive goal. Once more, sadly after a run of good performances, my worries over his ability to lead and organise at the back have resurfaced. He didn’t seem to be able to do so for large parts of the game. 5/10

Calvin Bassey

Seriously impressive and another sign of him looking confident, which is the most tell-tale sign with a player like him that he’s finding form once more. Made a big block to deny Clyne just after the half an hour mark, really throwing his body on the line. He was superb in the air and calm on the ball. Physically he was beyond outstanding and bullied Mateta out of the game. The things we know he’s good at, he showed here, which is more of a positive than normal with some of his poor form this season. 7.5/10

Timothy Castagne

Got into some proper wild positions in Palace’s half, especially in the first half, which ultimately had very limited effect up front. Obviously not his fault but playing on the left meant the majority of his crossing opportunities came on his left foot, which he never looked comfortable with. Defensively I was more impressed than normal, with limited errors and an important intervention to prevent Nketiah’s poked effort from going in 65 minutes in after he’d snuck in ahead of Leno from close range. 6.5/10

Sander Berge

Contrasting performance on and off the ball I think. So happy with the positivity on the ball, trying to drive forward from everywhere in midfield and playing lovely balls in between the Palace lines from higher up the pitch. Slight issue I have is, when you go from Palhinha to a man of Berge’s frame and ability, seeing such a lack of transitional ability from the Norwegian, who you’d assume would be a tackling/intercepting machine, is really irritating. 6.5/10

Alex Iwobi

Drifted in and out of the game. Had no real impact in the final third and seemed restricted to trying to create from deep with more long passes or deep crosses than anyone in Fulham’s midfield or attack. Put some early dangerous in-swinging corners in but nothing came of them annoyingly. Had one weak volley from the penalty spot go straight at Henderson half an hour in but bar that not much else to speak of. 6/10

Harry Wilson

Had huge involvements in two goals that basically defined his game, because he wasn’t involved other than those two moments. For Palace’s opener, he completely loses Eddie Nketiah with such a massive lapse in concentration, allowing an easy opportunity for them to score. Thankfully, a piece of brilliance at the other end saved him, with a stunning backheel and subsequent trivela finish. Bar that, rarely involved. 6/10

Emile Smith Rowe

Thought he was superb and we lost most of our attacking intent when he came off. Forced a huge block from Guehi just seven minutes in, with his half volley from a corner ending up just wide. Then forced a big save from Henderson with a strong strike from the left side of the box. Was extremely unfortunate to have his goal chalked off. Defensively kept tracking back throughout and looked really physically strong in his duels. Just always looked as if he could be the one here that might make the difference in a team that lacked a coherent attacking style. 8/10 – man of the match

Samuel Chukwueze

Really ineffective for a lot of the game but that wasn’t his fault. No winger or attacking player can influence a game when the tactics don’t allow them the ball. Got very unlucky to be called offside for the disallowed goal with Clyne stepping up just milliseconds before the ball came to Chuk. On another note, loved his willingness to continuously track back and provide both full backs with needed defensive cover. 6/10

Raul Jimenez

Not sure how to get a paragraph out of Raul’s game. The main point to be made here is that, despite having a striker on the bench that showed real promise against Man City, Raul continues to be devoid of a break and it continues to show. He kept running and contesting headers etc but he just looked exhausted. His pass to assist Wilson for our goal proves my point that even when he’s not in games he can affect them with his quality. I just wish he was given more opportunities to do that, both fitness and chances wise. 6/10

Substitutions

Kevin

Came on for the final quarter in place of Smith Rowe, but sadly offered nowhere near as much as the man he replaced. Lots of misplaced passes and failures to dribble past his man subbed up a disappointing cameo. Didn’t look physically up to it for that 25 minutes, he’ll have better days for sure. At least showed some defensive inventiveness and willingness late on. 5/10

Sasa Lukic and Josh King

Will give them a joint rating because I think they had a similar impact on proceedings – that impact being extremely minimal in place of Berge and Chukwueze. 13 ineffective passes and zero defensive contributions between them in two 20-minute cameos when we were hardly sitting back sums up the effectiveness of those substitutions. 5.5/10 for both

Tom Cairney/Adama Traore came on for Iwobi and Wilson in the dying embers of the game and can’t be fairly assessed.

Marco Silva

Where do I start? Let’s go with this thing he has about having two men standing over corners. Nobody else does it for a reason; it just means we lose an attacking player and it evidently never benefits us because we don’t score from them. Then there’s Castagne’s positioning in the second striker role throughout, which looked completely unnatural, provided no additional attacking threat and just added another body to an already congested area of the pitch. Not only that, but it meant Tete had to sit back more meaning he offered limited threat going forward and we were never able to have two wide full backs to pin back Mitchell and Clyne.

Such an area was congested because for whatever reason, Silva had Castagne, Berge, Smith Rowe and Raul all occupying those positions. Any half-decent manager would see Chukwueze versus an ageing Clyne as a key area for success, but instead both wingers had to constantly try to come inside to get the ball because they weren’t being given the ball in their best positions. Silva continues to fail to get the best from his attacking talent. Then there’s the subs. Every single one failed to have a positive impact, and bringing Smith Rowe off in particular completely lost us any attacking impetus.

The reason Palace won was tactics and cohesion. Glasner has a team that has bought into his system and gets success from the sum of its parts. Fulham dominated the ball here but had to rely on rare individual brilliance from Smith Rowe, Wilson etc to produce goalscoring opportunities. We had two-thirds of the possession, but it saw our centre-backs play more than 250 passes between them.

Meanwhile, Palace’s back three made a little more than 100 passes between them, getting the ball forward more efficiently and allowing the attacking players who know their attacking patterns off by heart (look at the movement of Kamada/Nketiah for their first goal) to do their thing.

Palace are a great team unit, but were there for the taking today, however Silva simply didn’t have the tactical acumen to use our attacking talent to get at them, which is no new story. I’m particularly angry for this game because nothing has changed for a long time. This is a manager out of ideas. 2.5/10