Crystal Palace 0 Fulham 2: Late Wilson goal seals miserable day for struggling hosts as London rivals soar up table
FULHAM’s former Arsenal contingent and supersub Harry Wilson were too good for injury-hit, 10-man Palace as Marco Silva’s stylish side moved up to seventh in the Prem.
Emile Smith-Rowe, a club-record £34million summer arrival after two years in the wilderness under Mikel Arteta, put the Whites ahead on the stroke of half-time with a cool finish after a defensive howler from Maxence Lacroix.
England international Smith-Rowe then combined with fellow former Gunner Alex Iwobi to tee up Wilson, fresh from his two-goal heroics to beat Brentford on Monday, just minutes after coming off the bench.
Arsenal academy products Smith-Rowe, Iwobi and the on-loan Reiss Nelson were outstanding against a patched up Palace side missing the likes of Ebere Eze, Adam Wharton, Eddie Nketiah and Jefferson Lerma and firmly in the relegation scrap.
Four of the last five meetings between these sides had ended in a draw and that is how it looked like finishing again for much of the first half between two evenly-matched sides.
Palace boss Oliver Glasner started the game with England centre-back Marc Guehi in midfield alongside Northern Ireland under-21 international Justin Devenny on his Premier League debut.
But the home side looked limited without the creativity of Eze, relying on balls over the top for Jean-Philippe Mateta to chase down as their main attacking outlet.
The tactic wasn’t without merit in the first half with former Palace favourite Joachim Andersen, who received a warm reception from the home fans, struggling to contain the powerful French forward on occasions.
The Danish defender did well to clear the ball off the line after Mateta bundled a shot into the body of Bernd Leno that was bouncing towards the net in Palace’s only real chance of note.
Iwobi, who was the best player on the park for much of the game, put Nelson in the clear midway through the first half but Dean Henderson did well to block his shot before crossing for Raul Jimenez to volley wide.
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But in first-half stoppage time Smith Rowe opened the scoring with a cool finish after he closed down French defender Lacroix, then diverted his ball out of defence into the path of Raul Jimenez.
The Mexican perfectly-weighted his through ball and it tucked into the corner by Smith-Rowe to give Fulham a deserved lead.
Fulham came racing out of the blocks in the second half and were denied what would have been a fantastic team goal finished by Smith-Rowe.
A strong forward pass from Sander Berge found Iwobi who skipped past a Palace and played a low cross that was met by his fellow Hale End graduate Smith Rowe.
Only for a lengthy VAR decision to rule that Smith Rowe was offside by the narrowest of margins.
Jimenez then volleyed narrowly over the bar as Fulham pushed hard for a second goal with Palace’s only real second-half opportunity chance coming through Daniel Munoz who latched on to a Daichi Kamada pass, but the Colombian could only shoot straight at Leno.
Palace’s problems were compounded in the final 15 minutes from time when Japan midfielder Kamada was shown a straight red card for a bad challenge on Kenny Tete.
He will now serve a three-game ban to add to Oliver Glasner’s list of unavailable players.
Wilson, who came off the bench to score two goals in injury time to beat Brentford on Monday, struck again seven minutes from time when he fired past Henderson from a superb pass from Iwobi.
The Wales international had the ball in the net again in added-time, only for Fulham to be denied once again by VAR that correctly deemed he had controlled the ball with his hand before blasting past the exposed Henderson.
Palace have only won once all season and the international break cannot come quick enough for Glasner who desperately needs the likes of Eze back in his team to pull away from the bottom three.
It is the opposite for Fulham who are chasing their first European adventure for 14 years in what has been their best start to a season since the 2004/05 season.