Fulham 1-1 Spurs (5-3 Pens)

Fulham secured a ticket to round three of the Carabao Cup on Tuesday night after a flawless penalty shootout.

An own-goal from Micky van de Ven got the Whites ahead before Richarlison made it level in normal time. 

In the resulting shootout, Davinson Sanchez was the only one not to tuck his spot-kick away after a smart Marek Rodák save, and Fulham were victorious.

Marco Silva freshened things up for the Cup team-wise, giving Adama Traoré his first Fulham start, as well as rare minutes for Rodák and Rodrigo Muniz. Harrison Reed also came back into midfield alongside Tom Cairney, who captained the side.

The slick surface meant every touch was tested by both sides, which João Palhinha almost capitalised on straight away. Combined with Cairney, he nabbed the ball back high up field to give Muniz a sniff of a chance, but he couldn’t quite get the ball under his spell.

Moments later and there was some quality down our left flank from Antonee Robinson. Intercepting a loose Spurs ball, our left-back glided past Manor Solomon and Sanchez, before scooping a lovely ball into the back post. Muniz was there, but couldn’t quite direct his header on target.

Fulham had their tails up and weren’t giving Spurs a chance to breathe. Fraser Forster was lucky to not see the ball cannon into his own net after being chased down by a spritely Reed, who epitomised the Whites’ early energy with the press.

The early work paid off with just under 20 minutes gone. Cairney, who had been lively all game, took Sanchez for a spin down the left before firing in a low cross, which van de Ven diverted into his own net.

Tottenham did work their way in to the contest slightly after going behind, but weren’t having much in the way of clear cut chances still. With 10 minutes remaining of the first period Giovani Lo Celso picked out Richarlison down the right, but the Brazilian forward’s effort didn’t trouble Rodák.

With the clock ticking down for half-time Fulham went close to doubling the advantage. Adama Traoré's ball from the right was pinpoint for the head of Muniz, whose nod down had to be saved smartly by Forster.

The rain followed the teams out for the second half with Fulham a goal to the good. Richarlison attempted to turn it around quickly for his side and almost saw his effort loop into the net after taking a big nick off Tim Ream, but Rodák was alert to parry.

A highly bizarre and unfortunate set of events came next ending with a Spurs equaliser. After a challenge with an opposition man, the boot of Kenny Tete appeared to be broken, and thus our right-back sprinted down the tunnel to fetch a new pair, reducing Fulham to 10 men in the meantime. Tottenham took this opportunity to attack down their left, and Perisic’s ball over was headed in by Richarlison to equalise.

With half an hour to go a massive chance presented itself for Fulham to regain the lead. After Cairney won it back, substitute Harry Wilson raced through the middle before squaring to Bobby De Cordova-Reid. But at the crucial moment winding up the shot, our forward man seemed to slip and stretch and his shot went wide as a result.

Wilson was involved again moments later as the Whites went close. Some lovely link-up between him and Cairney got our Welshman in on goal, but he was ultimately denied from close as he attempted to poke the ball under Forster.

Up the other end Manor Solomon got into his favoured position on the left before doing his trademark cut inside to curl one with his right. Fulham fans would’ve been having flashbacks to seeing it last season, but luckily this time Rodák was there to deny him.

Wilson was denied again with a minute left of proceedings after Luke Harris had spread the play out to him down the right. Our winger tried his best to poke it past the Spurs ‘keeper, but yet another stern stop kept him out.

97 minutes wasn’t enough to decide the outcome, and so the contest was to be settled by penalties.

A flawless first five penalties from Andreas Pereira, Son Heung-Min, Raúl Jiménez, Dejan Kulusevski and Wilson got things off to a solid start, before Sanchez had his penalty saved.

João Palhinha put the pressure on James Maddison who tucked his spot-kick away, before Tete slammed his one home to win Fulham the match and send us to the third round of the Carabao Cup.