Willian scored a brace to help Fulham produce one of the high-scoring football scores of the weekend in the Premier League. With Everton and Nottingham Forest, two teams in the Premier League below them, still having games to play, Dean Smith’s team is only one goal above the relegation zone and may drop as low as 19th by Monday night. With games against Liverpool and Newcastle coming up before a match against West Ham on the last day, Leicester now has a difficult task ahead of them if they want to avoid an astonishing relegation to the Championship. The Foxes believed it was crucial to pick up points in west London, but their ambitions appeared to be dashed by Willian’s free-kick, along with goals from Carlos Vinicius and Tom Cairney, by halftime.
After the break, the visitors’ defense continued to crumble as Cairney added a second. Harvey Barnes then scored a goal, but Bernd Leno saved Jamie Vardy’s penalty attempt. When the hosts lost their composure after Willian’s magnificent fifth goal, Leicester was awarded another penalty, which James Maddison converted. Then, after a terrible Shane Duffy header, Barnes had the opportunity to score his second goal. Although Fulham is only two points behind rival Brentford, who are one spot above them in eighth, Leicester’s efforts were too little, too late.
In the 10th minute, Willian’s curled free-kick from the left touchline soared unimpeded into the far corner, setting the stage for yet another defeat for Leicester. As the ball tricked every Foxes defender, there was no expectation nor reaction; only resignation to their fate. Vinicius broke through a huge hole in the Leicester defense to slip in Fulham’s second goal before Cairney curled in his first following Wout Faes’ shoddy clearing to continue the pattern throughout a disastrous first half.
Daniel Iversen made two stops to stop Harrison Reed from scoring, and Leno missed Jamie Vardy’s attempt after Antonee Robinson gave the ball away to give Leicester a slim 3-0 deficit at the break. After the break, Leicester appeared to be playing better, forcing Leno to deflect Barnes’ effort, but their defense quickly went AWOL once more, giving Cairney ample time to score after Kenny Tete stormed down the right flank. Soon after, Barnes did score thanks to a deflected shot, and the fightback appeared to be on when Leno hauled down Vardy in the area, but the custodian saved the striker’s feeble attempt.
The best of the eight shots, a twisting effort from 25 yards by Willian, restored the four-goal lead, but Fulham’s complacency seemed to have been lulled by Leicester’s poor play, as they conceded two goals to set up a frantic finish to the game. The tension was raised when Maddison won and converted a penalty kick to make up for missing a penalty kick against Everton the previous week. Duffy then came off the bench to put Barnes’ second goal on a plate when his headed pass fooled Leno and left an open net. Fulham, fortunately, recovered their composure just in time to dash Leicester’s aspirations.
“The first half of the game was lost. I’m dissatisfied since I didn’t anticipate it. I anticipated a much better performance because we’ve had a solid week of training. It was way too simple to enter our box and generate opportunities,” Leicester boss Dean Smith said. “We were really delighted to enter at halftime. In the first half, I was undoubtedly really anxious. I hope I don’t see that again because it was the first time I noticed it with these players. I’ll bet against it. We just didn’t get close to them; it wasn’t for lack of a battle. I can see some promise there, but you can’t keep giving up goals the way we do. We’ve also allowed several weak goals that, in my opinion, didn’t need much effort from the opposition to score. That is what needs to end.”
“We were unquestionably the superior team on the pitch, and we ought to have won this game with much more ease. wonderful goals, wonderful football situations, and a tremendously dramatic start. I was extremely happy to observe how the players communicated on the pitch,” Fulham boss Marco Silva said. “We shouldn’t have let those goals go by. We need to be much more consistent in those situations. We need to be more composed at times when we are in our box. However, I thought the performance was excellent—great even.”
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