Fulham were victorious in the SW6 derby on Thursday night as the formidable form continued.
Goals from Willian and Carlos Vinicius either side of a Kalidou Koulibaly equaliser ensured The Whites’ first win in this fixture for almost 17 years.
Marco Silva made a singular enforced change from Fulham’s victory in Leicester, as Vinicius replaced Aleksandar Mitrović up top, who served his one match suspension for five yellow cards.
After a minute’s applause was held around Craven Cottage for the late Gianluca Vialli, the game got under way on a blustery evening in South West London.
It was Chelsea who had the earliest chance after only two minutes, when sturdy blocks from Tosin and then Bernd Leno kept out Kai Havertz and Lewis Hall respectively.
Lucious link-up play down the Fulham left came next a few minutes later. Antonee Robinson’s pass was neatly scooped back to him from Andreas Pereira’s heel, and his cross then found Vinicius whose shot on the spin went narrowly wide.
It was a real scrappy contest in the opening stages with fouls given left, right and centre by referee, David Coote, amongst some neat interplay from both sides.
On the 23rd minute Fulham came tantalisingly close to opening the deadlock. Vinicius pounced on a loose header from Trevor Chalobah and fed it out to Bobby De Cordova-Reid on the right. He took a second to compose himself before crashing a shot off the crossbar and it was a let-off for Chelsea.
We didn’t have to wait long though, and got a deserved lead seconds later. Willian did well to recycle an overhit cross, cutting inside his marker on the left before driving one at goal which, after a Chalobah-sized deflection, looped into the Chelsea net.
Leno had to be alert after 35 minutes to parry Hall’s’ effort from a knock down in the box, with a big nick off Tosin making it an even trickier save, but our German shot stopper was well up to it.
Up the other end there was another ‘keeper in action just before half-time. After Kenny Tete’s curling cross was met by the head of Vinicius, the Brazilian striker managed to nod it down into the danger area, and Kepa made a bit of a muddle of it before Thiago Silva hooked it clear.
Chelsea commenced the second half with an equaliser, after Koulibaly poked home the rebound from a Mason Mount free kick from a few yards out. Leno did well to make the initial save and get a hand to the centre-back’s attempt, but a look at the watch from the ref declared the ball over the line.
A few minutes before the hour mark the Blues went down to ten, and it was new boy Felix who saw red on his debut. Lunging in to Tete with the studs up, the Portuguese man gave the referee little choice but to dismiss him.
The game was stretched now with both teams pushing to get ahead. Havertz had the opportunity to do so after twisting his way through into the box, but again Leno stood firm to keep him out.
With 73 minutes on the clock the Whites went back ahead. A delicious delivery from Pereira found his good friend Vinicius peeling off his marker at the back post, and he made no mistake to nod into an unguarded net and make it 2-1 Fulham.
In the end Fulham held on to make it five wins out of five since the restart, and send the Cottage into hysterics.
