Positives and Negatives: Aston Villa 1-0 Fulham

Jack Stroudley looks back on our lunchtime defeat in the Midlands.

Following last week’s last-gasp victory over Southampton, there was an understandable apprehension about a trip to Villa Park. Those concerns were justified as Fulham fell to a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Aston Villa on Saturday afternoon. The result allows those below us the opportunity to leapfrog us in the table. With the end of the season looming nearer, European football looks less likely. What are the main takeaways from the game?

Positives

I’m struggling to see any if I’m being frank, the second half was improved from the first I guess? We had a decent spell for 10-15 minutes? Sessegnon was bright when on the pitch? But nothing really to shout about, onto the doom and gloom.

Negatives

Suspect subs

As I briefly touched upon the opening 10-15 minutes in the second half were encouraging. We had a bit more fire in the belly during those opening exchanges with a lot of play coming down our right thanks to Kenny Tete, Ryan Sessegnon and Harry Wilson. Sessegnon’s reaction when he came off summed it up really, I thought he was one of the few bright sparks. Took his disallowed his goal well, continuously tried to create in a side that struggled.

The drop-off from Tete to Castagne is apparent and Wilson (yes he’s just come back from injury as has the Dutchman) showed some quality. Marco Silva subbed all three of them off and we felt a little devoid of ideas from that point onwards. Sideways, backwards, sideways, backwards was the order of the final twenty. Adama ran a bit, we played it across the Villa 18-yard-box a few times but ultimately those subs took the sting out of our game, frustrating.

Gap in quality

I spoke to some friends pre game and said the gap in quality between 7th and 8th is significant and I think Saturday showcased that. Fulham were poor throughout and didn’t deserve anything, no real clear cut chances and second to ball for large portions. Whenever we seemed to pick up the ball we were hounded by a pack of Villa players while when it was the other way round it felt like Villa had all the time in the world to take 2-3 touches and find the perfect ball. It felt like time and time again Unai Emery’s side had a man over unmarked, Silva has (once again) put blame on a refereeing performance when the reality is we were second best… again. A disappointing afternoon at Villa Park.

Passports away

Fulham fans passports have been doing the Hokey Cokey for months now, for me though my passport is firmly in the cupboard, SkyScanner has been un-bookmarked and I’m not longer looking at Lithuanian AirBnb’s. This really has the feeling of a season that could’ve been. Joy, elation and success in the SW6 derbies and some fantastic results against those above us has been matched with an inability to break teams down we “should be” beating and a soft underbelly during those crucial games, both in league and cup.

This Fulham team are good, but so is the vast majority of this division and you have to be on it for large chunks of the season to achieve Europe. All isn’t lost and at the time of writing I don’t know how Brighton, Bournemouth & Brentford have got on but Everton next week simply has to be three points. It’s do or die for Europe, I just don’t think we’re quite there yet.