Crystal Palace 0-2 Fulham

Fulham made it two wins in a week with a dominant 2-0 victory away to Crystal Palace on Saturday afternoon.

It looked like we would go in at half-time level despite having the better of things, until Emile Smith Rowe’s cool finish in stoppage time.

The midfielder then had a goal ruled out early on in the second half, before Palace had Daichi Kamada sent off for a high challenge.

Harry Wilson enjoyed another lively cameo off the bench, wrapping up the points with one of his first touches, before having another disallowed for handball.

Marco Silva named an unchanged side to the one that defeated Brentford earlier in the week, meaning Wilson – the hero from that night – had to settle for a place on the bench.

After a lot of early Fulham possession, it was our hosts who had the first sniff of goal when Jean-Philippe Mateta tried to take advantage of a miscontrol from Joachim Andersen, but the former Eagle recovered well to force his former teammate into slicing his shot.

We then went up the other end a minute later through Alex Iwobi’s driving run – he squared for Raúl Jiménez who controlled, spun, and volleyed a yard wide from the edge of the box.

Reiss Nelson came close to breaking the deadlock in the 14^th minute. Raúl held the ball up and laid off to Iwobi, who slid a perfect pass into the path of Nelson’s smart run. His shot was hit well enough, but Dean Henderson made a good save to maintain parity.

Nelson was getting plenty of joy cutting in from the left, and he’ll feel he might have done better when he drilled wide a couple of minutes later after being found by Smith Rowe.

Fulham were gifted an opening when Iwobi charged down a clearance which diverted into the path of Smith Rowe, but he was denied by a crunching Maxence Lacroix challenge.

There were then half chances at either end, with Marc Guehi and Mateta heading off target from set-pieces, either side of Antonee Robinson’s rising strike sailing over.

As half-time neared, the Whites almost went in front in stunning fashion. Brave play from Smith Rowe allowed him to prod through to Nelson, who dinked a cross over to Iwobi at the far post. His volley was fiercely struck and bound for the top corner, until Henderson was able to palm over.

But it was Palace who nearly had the advantage going into the break when Mateta’s header crept towards goal having spun off a Bernd Leno arm, but Andersen got back brilliantly to smash it off the line.

It was a lively end to proceedings, and it was Fulham who got our noses in front in the final minute of stoppage time. Smith Rowe’s high press intercepted Lacroix’s pass and dropped to Raúl, whose return pass was perfect, allowing the midfielder to drive forward and finish across Henderson expertly.

Silva’s men started the second half strongly but Leno had to make the first save, throwing himself at the feet of Daniel Munoz who had got in behind. VAR would have ruled it out for offside, but our number one was not to know that.

Smith Rowe thought he’d got his and Fulham’s second when he tucked home Iwobi’s cross at the end of a rapid counter-attack, but a lengthy VAR check ruled it out by the finest of margins for offside.

Undeterred, Fulham pressed on, with Iwobi at the heart of things again, picking out the run of Andreas Pereira who sent a rocket into the face of the onrushing Henderson.

And the two became acquainted again soon after when Andreas let fly from 20 yards. Henderson knew a lot more about this one, though, tipping over at full stretch. Andreas then found Raúl from the corner, and the Mexican was unfortunate to see his angled volley fly inches over.

Midway through the half, neat link-up play following a Robinson throw led to a sighter for Nelson, but Henderson was equal to his effort, as was the case when Mateta got a shot away into Leno’s grasp at the other end.

Iwobi then had a side-foot volley blocked and Nelson placed one wide, as Fulham probed for that crucial second goal.

With quarter of an hour to play, Palace found themselves down to 10 men when Kamada mistimed his challenge and recklessly raked Kenny Tete down his shin.

If Wilson was disappointed not to have started the game, he didn’t show it when introduced in place of Nelson, needing just 39 seconds to get on the end of Iwobi’s through ball and finish past Henderson.

We thought there was a beautiful case of déjà vu when Wilson got on the end of fellow substitute Adama Traoré’s cross and prodded home, but VAR spotted that the ball bounced against his arm just prior to the finish.

It would have been a bonus to add to the scoreline but it mattered not in the end, as Fulham closed out a thoroughly impressive performance in routine fashion.