Lacklustre Spurs slump to heavy defeat at Fulham
Fulham returned to winning ways in style as they stunned Tottenham Hotspur with their joint-heaviest defeat this season, a 3-0 win at Craven Cottage that keeps alive their hopes of possible qualification for European football.
In-form striker Rodrigo Muniz scored either side of Sasa Lukic’s goal as they beat their London rivals to pick up their fourth league win in six matches.
It was also the first time Spurs have failed to score in 39 league matches as they missed the chance to move into the top four ahead of Aston Villa,
Marco Silva made two changes for Fulham as Joao Palhinha and Willian replaced Harrison Reed and Harry Wilson. Radu Dragusin made his first start in Spurs’ only change, coming in for the injured Micky van
de Ven. Fulham got off to a bright start and almost made the breakthrough after 11 minutes, but Cristian Romero made a superb block of Andreas Pereira’s
shot after Guglielmo Vicario’s parry of Alex Iwobi’s cross had fallen to the Brazilian.
Muniz missed a great chance to score in the 24th minute but failed to get any contact with Antonee Robinson’s cross. This led to a Spurs counter-attack, from which Son Heung-min narrowly missed the target.
Spurs continued to attack at a fast pace and four minutes later James Maddison teed up Brennan Johnson, but the winger’s effort was straight at Bernd Leno.
Maddison himself went close to the opener with a shot from the edge of the area that brushed Leno’s right post.
Fulham broke the deadlock just before half-time as Muniz showed great control and composure to score his sixth goal of the season from Robinson’s whipped cross. The Brazilian took the cross with one touch before firing the ball across Vicario.
The in-form striker became the first Fulham player to score in four consecutive home matches in the Premier League, with five goals in total as well as one assist.
Fulham then doubled their lead just four minutes into the second half as Lukic finished past Vicario in unorthodox fashion for his first goal for the club. Timothy Castagne’s cross from the right came off the Serbian midfielder’s thigh and flew past Vicario into the far corner.
The hosts continued to dominate and Muniz scored his second to make it 3-0. Calvin Bassey controlled a knockdown at a corner and did well to turn and smash a close-range shot against a post. The ball landed in the six-yard box, where Muniz got in ahead of Dragusin to poke the ball home, to become the the youngest Fulham player to score a brace in a London derby in the Premier League.
That was Muniz’s last action as he was replaced by Raul Jimenez after taking a blow in the act of scoring.