Fulham stops Chelsea title fight after Muniz seals last-gasp comeback | first division

Perhaps there will be some debate surrounding Fulham's equalizer after 82 minutes of this 2-1 win for Marco Silva's side at Stamford Bridge. Certainly Pedro Neto spent a lot of time prostrate clutching his jaw in performative agony after being caught by Alex Iwobi's shoulder while the Fulham The man skated past too easily. Neto would be better off trying to attack with his feet in the future.

There was no debate about the winner, who arrived five minutes into added time, calmly supported by substitute Rodrigo Muñiz. And beyond that, there was no real doubt that Fulham deserved the victory, reward for an ambitious second-half performance that left Silva and his bench writhing in a swaying huddle on the touchline, and Fulham eighth in the table.

This was a day when Chelsea They never seemed to have the deeper gear needed to hold on to an early lead conceded by Cole Palmer's sensational first-half goal. “When you can't win, it's important not to lose. “We have conceded too many transitions,” said Enzo Maresca. “It became a basketball game and this is not good for us, we need control.”

The defeat leaves Chelsea seven points off the top of the table, having played one game more than Liverpool, who beat Leicester 3-1 later on Boxing Day. It is not a crisis. This was also the first defeat in 10 league games. But that race never really felt like a title fight, but more like a title curiosity walk. Maresca continues to say that his team is not prepared. On this evidence you are right.

During the first game, two soccer games were basically played at the same time. On the one hand the main characteristic, an energetic first division Derbi, the usual fight for space and small margins. And along with that, a game of Palmer against the world, those periodic jumps into hyperspace when Chelsea's playmaker takes the ball and decides to invent the game from scratch.

There's still something Christmassy about this Chelsea model, or at least quite a bit of Boxing Day. Here they are surrounded by shiny new plastic material, a little dazed and saturated, and still figuring out what to do with four new boxed Lego Death Stars, legacy of Todd Boehly's drunken Santa as football manager.

Here Maresca started with a straight, non-inverted back four, with Roméo Lavia absent from midfield and his replacement Enzo Fernández alternately impressive with the ball and a weak link without it.

Fulham kept their full-backs back from the start. Adama Traoré started up the right with super short sleeves, biceps undulating like mature Iberian hams, always looking to advance towards the inside of the field.

And Fulham were the brighter team from the start, with Traoré and Iwobi occupying the spaces left by Chelsea's spells of advanced possession. Which was fine until the moment Palmer decided it was time for something else to happen.

The goal captured exactly why it is so unusual in elite football. There really wasn't much at stake, there was no pre-established path to goal when he picked up the ball 30 yards out, received a short pass from Levi Colwill and turned on the turn. Except yeah, maybe I'll just do this.

Three seconds later, Palmer evaded three Fulham players and put the ball into the net. He first deflected Andreas Pereira's attempt to track him down. He then switched feet midway to get away from Sasa Lukic. Finally, Palmer not only shot through Issa Diop's legs, but placed a beautifully crafted side shot through Diop's legs, in a way so measured, so lovingly precise that it was almost sensual, like a little affectionate squeeze. on the thigh.

Palmer took a few moments to have fun after that, at one point producing an outrageous little cage football lateral push when he could have gone off. Stable there. This has not been done yet. And steadily, Fulham began to create opportunities, forcing Chelsea to have moments of tight defense in extremis.

Fulham had more possession in the first half and the same number of shots. And overall, Chelsea just didn't have much slack here, no relaxation periods, no sense of how to rest with the ball. At times, during an increasingly nerve-wracking second half, the home crowd applauded every time a Chelsea player put a foot on the ball or passed back, and that 1-0 lead always looked precarious.

Chelsea played for a while at half-time, pushed by Fulham's vigor in midfield. Fernández was skilled on the ball, but often outplayed it in deeper spaces. In the 58th minute, Traoré ran past his left side like a man absentmindedly jumping a traffic cone, letting Neto drag him close to the goal with some desperation.

It was a precursor to the equalizer and Neto's failure to get close enough to Iwobi, opening up space near the corner flag. The ball was crossed deep, Timothy Castagne headed it back and then Harry Wilson delivered it. From there the winning goal may have arrived late; but it never seemed like a surprise.