Fulham 3-2 Liverpool: Match report & 3 key talking points as Reds stumble on the road
- Fulham were well worth their victory
- Liverpool suffered their first away defeat of the league season
- Mohamed Salah drew another blank
Fulham became just the second side to earn a Premier League victory against Arne Slot's Liverpool as they emerged with a 3-2 win at Craven Cottage on Sunday afternoon.
Almost seven months after Nottingham Forest counter-attacked their way to a 1-0 win at Anfield, Fulham took the game to Liverpool. Undeterred by Alexis Mac Allister's blistering opener, the Cottagers scored three goals in 14 first-half minutes.
Luis Diaz halved the deficit in the second half but Fulham valiantly clung to all three points.
How the game unfolded
Fulham boss Marco Silva demanded a performance "close to perfection" from his out-of-form Cottagers. They delivered.
Liverpool's suffocating midfield double act forced the visitors into an early lead. Ryan Gravenberch was first to a loose ball in midfield and Mac Allister was second on the scene, striding forward before drilling a crisp drive into the top corner. Yet, Fulham romped into the ascendancy thereafter.
The Reds were ahead for less than ten minutes before Ryan Sessegnon controlled a half-volley into the bottom corner, lapping up a miscued clearance from emergency right-back Curtis Jones. Fulham's devilish press also proved to be too much for Liverpool's other full-back.
Andy Robertson was guilty of a trio of blunders in the buildup to Fulham's second goal, eventually inadvertently deflecting Alex Iwobi's strike beyond his own goalkeeper.
Rodrigo Muniz capped off a first-half blitz with Fulham's third goal in 14 breathless minutes. The Brazilian forward managed to tame a ball dropping out of the cloudless London sky and spin past Virgil van Dijk with the same scandalous touch. Even while tumbling to the turf, Muniz slipped his shot between Caoimhin Kelleher's open legs.
Unimpressed with his starting XI's attempts to chip away at the deficit, Slot cycled through four substitutes with more than a quarter of the contest remaining. Two of those arrivals combined in the 72nd minute as Conor Bradley drove infield before laying the ball off for Luis Diaz to prod beyond Bernd Leno.
Diogo Jota forced an excellent save from Leno and Harvey Elliott crashed a curling effort off the crossbar as Fulham's backline dropped so deep they were almost shoulder-to-shoulder with the fans behind their goal. Yet, their resolve would not be punctured, ensuring that Liverpool's title coronation will have to wait another week.
Player ratings
Check out player ratings from Fulham 3-2 Liverpool here.
Liverpool's left-backs of past, present & future?
"People want new players into our club, people want players out," Robertson sniffed earlier this season. "That's just the world we live in." While transfer speculation is more rampant than ever, the Scot's waning performances haven't done much to quell the dissenting voices.
Robertson's struggles this term were distilled into one devastating passage of play in the 32nd minute. Faced with Fulham's approaching press, the 31-year-old shanked a nervy pass straight to Iwobi. Not content with one giveaway, his weak header gave the ball back to Fulham's forward who beat Kelleher with a tame effort that squirted off Robertson's chest.
It was painfully fitting that Robertson's final touch of the half was a failed attempt to control a simple pass which squirmed over the touchline.
As he has been at pains to point out in response to all this scrutiny, Robertson has valiantly served as Liverpool's dependable left-back for the past eight years. He remains Slot's first-choice but there is the growing suspicion that he could be replaced next season.
Fulham's Antonee Robinson has often been put forward as a potential candidate - and did himself no harm with another measured display on Sunday.
Mohamed Salah sinks deeper into his funk
Mohamed Salah resides in the stratospheric realm of players who break an endless supply of goalscoring records with each outing. However, the flip side of that coin is the increased scrutiny lumbered upon these elite individuals on the rare occasion they don't find the net.
Four consecutive outings without a goal or an assist doesn't even approach noteworthy status for most players. Yet, the last time Salah suffered a drought that long was back in the lockdown era of 2021.
After drawing a blank against Paris Saint-Germain, Newcastle United and Everton, Salah was once again shunted to the fringes of Sunday's contest. When he was presented with his first sight of goal with his second touch inside the box in the 65th minute, the Premier League's leading scorer ballooned his effort into the River Thames.
Fulham deserve credit for punishing lackadaisical Liverpool
It would be very easy to launch into a tirade against Liverpool's newfound complacency. The Reds had not lost a Premier League game in which they'd scored the first goal since April 2023. That this run came to an end one day after everyone had seemingly accepted Liverpool's status as top-flight champions can be no coincidence.
However, Fulham applied the pressure to force Liverpool's stumble.
Aside from his immaculate finish, Muniz was a perpetual pest, buzzing around Van Dijk to leave the famously unflappable centre-back unmistakably flustered. The Cottagers were not only brave enough to press but picked their moments to pounce perfectly.
When faced with a crimson torrent of pressure in the closing stages, Fulham's rejigged five-man rearguard held firm. At the end of a week which saw their FA Cup quarter-final exit compounded by a derby loss to Arsenal, Marco Silva's side rallied impressively.
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