Fulham 1-4 Newcastle

It was one of those days for Fulham, as Newcastle United inflicted a first home defeat of the season upon us.

The damage was done in a bizarre first half which began with an early red card for Nathaniel Chalobah.

That set the tone for proceedings, with the visitors storming into a comfortable lead courtesy of goals from Callum Wilson, Miguel Almiron and Sean Longstaff, while Aleksandar Mitrović went off injured.

The second half was a more even affair, with Almiron and Bobby De Cordova-Reid on the scoresheet at either end, but the result had long since been settled.

Knocks for Kenny Tete and Willian meant Kevin Mbabu and Dan James were given first starts for the Club, while we were also given a first look at Layvin Kurzawa at left-back. Chalobah took the holding midfield role in the absence of the suspended João Palhinha.

Newcastle should have gone one up inside five minutes when the first openings of the game presented themselves from a long free-kick. First the ball dropped to Dan Burn who lashed in a fierce shot that was brilliantly repelled by Bernd Leno, and then Wilson prodded the ball back across goal and against the outside of the post when it seemed easier to score.

Fulham’s luck would not hold, though, with Chalobah soon shown a straight red card – following a VAR intervention – for a late challenge on Longstaff.

A horrible start to proceedings then got worse as Newcastle went in front, with Wilson stabbing home from an inch out following Joe Willock’s header back across goal.

A shell-shocked Fulham tried to take the game to the visitors through some positive forward running from James, but it was the Magpies who had the afternoon’s next chance on 28 minutes, with Wilson curling over on the spin.

Five minutes later, it was 2-0, and in stunning fashion. Bruno Guimaraes’ scooped pass found the run of Almiron, who volleyed an incredible angled outside-of-the-boot volley over Leno and inside the far post.

To round off what had been a remarkably distressing first half, Mitrović picked up an injury and had to be replaced with Carlos Vinicius.

Leno then made good saves to keep out goalbound efforts from Willock and Jacob Murphy, but Newcastle made it three from the subsequent corner. Leno actually made a wonder stop to tip Sven Botman’s header onto the post, but Longstaff was following up to tuck home the rebound.

In keeping with how things were going, we lost Kurzawa to injury on the stroke of half-time. Issa Diop took his place. Tom Cairney was also brought on for Mbabu, meaning we switched to three at the back with James and De Cordova-Reid acting as wing-backs.

Leno had done a good job of keeping the score down all day, and he was at it again within four minutes of the restart, throwing himself at Willock’s curling strike to push it behind.

The Newcastle midfielder did create the fourth for his team, though, latching onto Murphy’s through pass and squaring to Almiron for a tap-in.

Tosin came very close to pulling one back midway through the half, but with the way the dice had fallen for the Whites it was unsurprising to see his header from Andreas’ corner bounce just the wrong side of the post.

To the boys’ credit, they had kept pushing in trying circumstances, and nabbed a late consolation when De Cordova-Reid ghosted beyond his marker to nod home a beautiful cross from substitute Neeskens Kebano.