Woeful Wolves beaten as Fulham end losing streak
Silva's men rally as Sessegnon, Wilson and an own goal earn them a 3-0 win at the Cottage
Don’t look twice - Fulham have won a game in the Premier League! The losing streak hanging around the players’ necks has been terminated with a 3-0 win over last-place Wolverhampton Wanderers, and whilst it would not be unfair to say the fallow nature of our opponents today contributed to the win, the refreshing sight of a victorious Fulham performance would have been as enjoyable for the team as it was the fans. There’s a long way to go before I’d say we’re back in good form, but this is a good start, in a game it would have been terrible not to win.
First Half
Wolves are not in a happy place at the moment, stuck at the bottom of the table with nothing but a couple of draws keeping them from an empty points tally, and ongoing turmoil around manager Vitor Pereira’s tenure meant the team he selected to start the game was a confused mess: an unwieldy back five, a midfield with a centre-back shoved into it and two radically different forwards stranded at the top of the team. Silva already had a positive line-up starting today, with Iwobi in an attack-minded CM role and Sessegnon given licence to join Kevin in advances down the left, and he would have been further encouraged by the state of the opposition walking out at the Cottage.
It didn’t take long for things to unravel for them, either. Fulham were a little nervy at the start of the game and a confident opposition might have built on this, with Bellegarde’s smart turn in the box yielding an early save from Leno and a cheap giveaway from Bassey leading to Munetsi winning a corner from Sessegnon’s sliding block. But, as is often the case for nervous teams that switch to back-fives, the concentration of bodies around their backline invited the pressure onto them. Bassey’s pass through the midfield saw Santiago Bueno rush out of position to try and intercept the ball. His failure to communicate with Agbadou took the ball away from his teammate, and into the path of Jimenez. Raul reacted perfectly, intelligently playing the ball forward for Sessegnon, liberated from his marker, to charge through on goal. A touch took it into the box, a second struck it towards Johnstone, whose feeble arm couldn’t stop it burrowing into the back of the net.
1-0 definitely suited Fulham, who were still a little tetchy on the ball despite the early lead. Wolves, miserable and losing again, slunk into their shell, content to let Fulham play around the pitch and deal with them once they made it to the final third. Not for the first time, we were pretty without being punishing. Iwobi enjoyed being further forward, feeding Sess and a lively Kevin to attack Hoever at right back. Wilson and Tete made sprightly bursts too, targeting the space between Toti Gomes and Hugo Bueno on our right. Central to everything was Josh King, once again battling with far larger defenders with his guile and acceleration, taking the ball into dangerous areas and trying to feed his teammates. Yet we couldn’t turn this pressure into a second goal - a mixture of wastefulness in the box and some decent defending from S. Bueno, perhaps eager to redeem himself, kept the score the same.
King wasn’t deterred though, and his determination delivered the second critical juncture of the game. Tete lofted a through ball over the backline for the young talent, who spotted Agbadou hurtling towards him and dinked the ball ahead of the defender before the inevitable collision. A straight red card followed (albeit with a VAR scare) and Wolves afternoon took an even sourer turn.
Yet strangely, this seemed to push Fulham into complacency. Expecting Wolves to completely implode, we took our eyes off the game, and allowed our disadvantaged opponent the chance to claw themselves back into contention. Most of their chances had come from reactive moves, be it speculative goal-kicks or throughballs played into our relatively-understaffed defence, and the red card frenzied the opposition into doubling down on this approach. Bellegarde’s pacy runs from midfield challenged our centre-backs a few times, and in stoppage time a swelling of energy for Wolves moved several erstwhile defensive players into our box. Tete narrowly avoided a VAR intervention on a block from a Munetsi header, and consecutive crosses from Hoever and Toti Gomes came perilously close to an equaliser at the end of the half - Strand Larsen couldn’t stick the first into the open net, and the second was headed down for Leno to catch.
Second Half
These were bolts from the blue from Wolves though, who were risible throughout the half. It would have been a travesty to let them sneak back into the game through our own failure to capitalise on our dominance, and this was almost certainly the message from Marco Silva at half-time. Yet strangely Pereira did half our job for us, substituting defenders T. Gomes and Hoever for Mosquera and Tchatchoua and moving a player into midfield by switching Arias for Joao Gomes. Whilst Hoever had endured a terrible half, he was at least more familiar to the situation than Tchatchoua, Gomes had been one of the few consistently dangerous players with the ball for Wolves and taking a forward out of a game Wolves were destined to focus on counter-attacking in was mystifying.
Kevin wasted no time tearing Tchatchoua to shreds, beating him with tricks and pace and making the left channel his own, powering balls into the box and winning set-pieces for Fulham. Moving Krejci into defence left Wolves’ ability to stutter our play even weaker - we had the ball close enough to strike at goal, which Tete took the opportunity to do on a couple of occasions, forcing Johnstone into a good save for one of them. Quick interplay forced their defenders to take us on, creating more space and exposing Johnstone to shots produced by runs into the box - Iwobi had an effort blocked by Mosquera, Tete’s clever one-two with Jimenez needed Johnstone to surge off his line to deny a goal and the glut of corners we’d won dulled Wolves’ ability to escape their own box.
It was pained watching for Wolves fans, and the inevitable came just after the hour mark. With the whole game taking place in their half, Johnstone’s hopelessly-rushed distribution was losing possession constantly - Bassey won an aerial contest against Bellegarde, Wilson played the ball over an incoming Bueno for Jimenez, with the space Raul took the ball into the box and cut it back across for Berge, whose shot was blocked by a well-placed Krejci. Yet Wilson was alert to the situation, and with opposition strode into place to power the rebound goalwards, through a sea of defenders and into the bottom-left corner of the net. An outstanding finish, and crucially a goal to push Wolves out of reach
How do managers try and coach their team in such awful circumstances? Pereira had already rolled the dice with the triple change and made things worse. His faith now turned to striker Arokodare, introduced for Bellegarde to try and give our defence some concern with long balls. It was far too late though - Fulham were rampant now, playing with a relaxed freedom in the knowledge their doubled advantage gave them a safety net, and picked the holes across a manic Wolves formation. It didn’t help that the morale of Pereira’s team was on the floor - a few set-pieces presented to them might have been a route back into the game, but were squandered by appalling touches and terrible deliveries, and whittled away.
Then, after we’d flexed our own squad depth with a triple-change, we struck our third. Wolves were “enjoying” a slight moment in our half, and had the ball within touching distance of goal. Yet the fresh legs of captain Cairney beat Hugo Bueno to a loose pass, and the proceeding counter-attack was far too much for a depleted Wolves defence. Through Tete and Smith-Rowe, Iwobi glided with the ball through the open half, waiting until just the right moment to play the ball ahead of Tchatchoua for Sessegnon’s overlap. He crossed the ball in for Smith-Rowe, whose missed slide was amended by another fortunate deflection from Johnstone and a clumsy bungling of the ball into the net by Mosquera.
A chastening moment in a game full of disappointment for Wolves, and there were still 20 minutes left to play. Presumably at this point Silva just wanted his players to get minutes and confidence under their belt - Muniz had already arrived and was sticking his head around the park, and Chukwueze joined the action shortly after the third was scored. He had a few interesting moments too - a reactive swipe in the box from an Iwobi cross hit the frame of the goal, and a mazy run with a delightful piece of skill to get through two defenders ended in a shot being narrowly parried wide by Johnstone, who must have been sick of the sight of Fulham players at this point in the game. It was a fun ending to the match, and the first time we’ve seen the team enjoy their football in a long while.
Are Fulham back?
Naturally a 3-0 win contains a lot of positives for Fulham, and we should definitely make a point of focusing on them - when you haven’t won a league match for a month I think it’s vital to try and talk about what went well! Whilst it wasn’t the smoothest execution, there could have been many more goals for Fulham in the match, and our opponents were absolutely shocking, the attacking aims of the team were on full display today, and delivered a healthy stream of chances for players to latch onto in the box.
We’re seeing Kevin resemble a dangerous attacker more frequently now. A bit of time acclimatising to his team, settling into the physical challenges of the Premier League and collecting his thoughts in a new country, and the man looks frighteningly good. His swagger on the ball is connected to really dangerous attacks now, as we saw terrorise Hoever and the hapless Tchatchoua today. King might still be waiting for a goal but he has become a major question for opponents - how do you stop him peeling off defenders and taking Fulham forward? The red card is the consequence if you can’t answer it. Iwobi in the “8” role gives us a really viable attacking option for the future - he fundamentally understands how his teammates play, and continually feeds the ball to them in a direct fashion.
The goalscorers had interesting games too. I thought Sessegnon made a few mistakes today, with a few wasteful touches and a bit of vulnerability on the wing when Bellegarde or even Hoever attempted to navigate down the channel. However, you can’t deny how effective he is when he gets his moves right - quick, slick and dangerous, and directly involved in the first and last goals today. When Robinson returns it will be silly not to let him unleash his attacking excellent without as much defensive responsibility as a left-back has to have. Wilson’s goal was superlative, a reminder of the sheer talent in the guy’s feet, and whilst he had a few moments that could have been sharper there’s always the chance of a goal when he’s on the pitch. “Own goal” cropped up again as well - some might laugh at the fact it’s our top scorer, but there’s a reason our attacks from the wings keep putting defenders in awkward positions, and if it helps up win games it’ll never be something I sniff at.
The best players today were further back, for me. Sander Berge often gets criticised for being too conservative but you don’t win games without players like him, willing to graft behind the attackers and keep the structure of the team together. Rarely out of position, never afraid to stop the opposition and even responsible for a few effective attacking passes today - he’s become a very important midfielder for the club. Similarly, Kenny Tete should be given praise. Bassey’s wavering form, and Andersen’s injury-caused rustiness, gave Wolves more opportunities than they ought to have received - involved in many, many attack-ending tackles was our right back, timing his defending to perfection. I really liked his seamless movement into attacking positions - so frequently his passes supplemented the build-up of play, without moving forward with abandon either.
A sheep in Wolves’ clothing
It’s a sharp contrast for Wolves, who started poorly and as the game went on devolved into farce. I was actually struggling to recognise some of the players Wolves had playing for them today - the team that came up with us (all the way back in 2018!) has largely gone, replaced by signings far below the quality of the Nuno years, coached by a management team scrambling for new ideas, forming a rabble of players barely able to muster a coherent gameplan.
I think it is worth stressing how abysmal Wolves were. For as much as I was pleased with how we played, the opposition today was atrocious. How a team can start with five defenders, a centre-back and defensive midfielder in front of them, Bellegarde drifting around trying to fit between attackers and two isolated forwards is a mystery. This isn’t the first tweak Pereira has tried with this team, but clearly it didn’t work, and the despondent mood around the team was easy to view. Johnstone gets some credit for his saves (though I don’t think he’ll be pleased for the Sessegnon goal), but the others were varying degrees of bad, with the lowlights being Agbadou’s red card, the hopeless defending across the back five in general and some truly insipid sub performances from Tchatchoua, Joao Gomes and Arokodare.
We won’t have many games with as forgiving an opposition, and this has to be made clear to the players - winning 3-0 is nice, but against the worst team in the league in the worst form they’ve probably ever played us in should highlight how the win came about. Maybe there’s a reminder about the cruel nature of football in 2025 for us here too - Wolves fans have been particularly vocal about the pathetic stewardship of their owners, whose underinvestment has seen the side slide from the Europa League to a severe risk of relegation. The troubles we’ve had so far this season are a drop in the ocean of mismanagement lying elsewhere in the league, and things could be a lot worse at the Cottage.
Still, there’s work to do for Fulham. This win needs to be the kickstarter for a winter revival at the club - whilst it has never quite been “crisis”, there is a certain ugliness to seeing Fulham in 14th, especially with competent managers like Dyche and Nuno ready to lead their teams out of the relegation zone. It was a fun watch today - we have to back Silva to ensure this becomes the norm for Fulham again, and with injuries slowly clearing and key men making their way back to the match day squad, there's every chance he will.