Joao Palhinha soars for Fulham and sends Southampton spiralling

If it wasn’t for bad luck Southampton would have no luck at all. With the game edging into its 90th minute, they seemed to have secured a rare but fully warranted away point at the very least. Then Fulham were awarded a corner. Andreas Pereira clipped it to the near post. Kenny Tete nodded on and Joao Palhinha headed in at the back post. The game was won and lost.

Even then the drama was not over. Deep into the seven added minutes, a long ball set Dan James free, his run stopped only when he was sandwiched in the area by Gavin Bazunu and Lyanco. Alexsandar Mitrovic’s penalty was saved by Bazunu, but there was little cause for visiting celebration. Fulham march on and until Chelsea’s game on New Year’s Day at least, are West London’s leading team. Southampton have taken one point from six games and are bottom of the table.

Yet, as new manager Nathan Jones was eager to point out, their performance was solid. “We can be a good team, but we keep conceding bad goals. If we’d defended two set plays better, we’d have taken something today. We were naive, we can’t keep letting things go and we can’t keep being sloppy. We have to learn quickly, but there’s a good team in here.”  

As Jones noted, his team had chances too and when Che Adams latched on to a long ball forward, he found himself alone and bearing down on goal. Adams’s shot was hard and true, but Bernd Leno made himself big and the ball cannoned off the German’s shoulder to safety.

Then, Fulham scored when Armel Bella-Kotchap stretched to clear Antonee Robinson’s cross for a corner. Willian lobbed it deep to the edge of the area where Pereira met it with volley that seemed to be speeding wide. Alas for the startled visitors, it took a massive deflection off James Ward-Prowse and Southampton were behind once again. “It was a set-piece Fulham have used before,” lamented Jones. “We’ve shown it to the players 10 times.”

As the rain descended, Fulham’s belief waxed as Southampton’s waned, but as Fulham began to cruise, Southampton equalised. Foolishly, Bobby De Cordova-Reid felled Adams 25 yards out in the central zone. There was only one man to take the kick and there was only one outcome as Ward-Prowse curled a beauty past Leno.

For a moment, Southampton sensed famine might become feast. Then came the corner…