By Our Man at Craven Cottage
IT WAS the kind of West London collapse that would make even the nearby bridge look sturdy.
Fulham dominated, Fulham dazzled, and then—in a madcap eight-minute span—Fulham simply fell apart.
Everton staged a heist of Great Train Robbery proportions at Craven Cottage yesterday, coming from behind to snatch a 2-1 win that left Marco Silva fuming and David Moyes grinning from the stands.
For 75 minutes, this was the Raúl Jiménez and Samuel Chukwueze show.
The Fulham duo tortured the Toffees’ backline, with Chukwueze rattling the crossbar and Jiménez forcing a save from Jordan Pickford that ricocheted off a helpless Vitalii Mykolenko for the opener.
But football is a cruel mistress, and her name yesterday was Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.
The Toffees’ midfield engine, who had spent most of the match chasing shadows, suddenly found his spark.
In the 75th minute, Mykolenko made amends for his earlier misfortune, overlapping down the left and cutting back for Dewsbury-Hall to fire home a low equalizer that hushed the home faithful.
Then came the moment Bernd Leno will want to scrub from the archives.
Under pressure from Everton’s towering defender Jake O’Brien, the German keeper experienced a total system failure.
As Dewsbury-Hall swung in a teasing corner, Leno rose to clear the danger—only to inexplicably punch the ball directly into his own net.
”We should have been four up by half-time,” a shell-shocked Marco Silva admitted.
“The game should have been over. We have only ourselves to blame.”
MOYES ON THE MARCH
While Fulham drop to 10th, the jubilant traveling Blues are looking up. This win catapults Moyes’ men to 7th, just two points behind neighbors Liverpool.
With James Tarkowski a rock at the back and Iliman Ndiaye providing the late-game flair, the “School of Science” is starting to look like it’s back in session.
