The peerless João Palhinha produced a peach of an equaliser to pinch a precious point for Fulham at Brighton and Hove Albion this afternoon. The Portuguese international, who was so close to moving to Bayern Munich back in September, marked his 50th appearance for the Cottagers with a fabulous finish on the turn from the edge of the area to cancel out Evan Ferguson’s first-half opener and stretch the visitors’ unbeaten top flight streak against the Seagulls to seven matches.
Palhinha delivered a late leveller at Arsenal in August before Bayern came calling and, despite being renowned for his tenacity in the tackle, the Lisbon-born midfielder has come up with special strikes since swapping Sporting Lisbon for south west London last summer. His latest sublime strike was just reward for an improved second half showing from Marco Silva’s side and it was a moment of magic for the 3,000 travelling fans behind Jason Steele’s goal to savour. Palhinha, who had escaped sanction from referee Michael Sailsbury having elbowed Pascal Groß in the first half, found the top corner on the turn after Alex Iwobi and Harry Wilson had seized upon a poor pass from the German with his first goal since he pen to paper on a new Fulham contract earlier this month.
A triple change early in the second period that saw Wilson, Andreas Pereira and Rodrigo Muniz replace Bobby De Cordova-Reid, Harrison Reed and Raul Jimenez liven up the Londoners as an attacking force. Albion, boosted by a first European win in their history on Thursday night, had by far the better of the opening exchanges. Bernd Leno did brilliantly to beat away an effort from the influential Carlos Baleba and then used his right boot to deny Simon Adingra from Kaoru Mitoma’s immediately afterwards. The tricky Japanese winger wasted the game’s clearest chance by dragging a drive wide having breezed past Tim Ream.
Roberto de Zerbi’s side were starting to prob in front of Silva’s back four but they took the lead through another goal that had its genesis in some sub-par Fulham distribution. Reed’s ball for Jimenez was underhit allowing Igor Julio to carry the ball forward and find Groß. The German midfielder, making his 200th Premier League appearance, stroked a ball through the centre of the visiting defence and Ferguson, who had got goalside of Antonee Robinson, stroked a fine finish past the helpless Leno. That goal made the Irish international the first teenager to score ten times in the top flight in a calendar year since Wayne Rooney eighteen years ago.
Robinson almost gift-wrapped a second for Ferguson with a terrible back header but the American international was bailed out by the alert Leno. Fulham failed to hit the target in the first period, although De Cordova-Reid did blaze over the bar from their best opening from a Willian cross, and could have gone further behind at the second of the second half when Lewis Dunk’s dipping free-kick from distance crashed off the crossbar. That sparked Silva’s triple substitution and, after Palhinha’s excellent equaliser, Muniz nearly backheeled them in front from Robinson’s cut back only for the Brazilian’s effort to be smartly stopped by Steele.
Albion looked rattled and the home faithful whistled their disapproval at treatment being given to the bleeding Palhinha and the injured Leno before de Zerbi’s side penned Fulham back once again. Leno denied substitute Ansu Fati at the near post before Robinson redeemed himself with a remarkable goal-line clearance to keep out Adam Webster’s header. Both sides had chances to nick it during nine minutes of added time. Pereira twice failed to convert a Wilson cross whilst Ream got in the way of an effort from João Pedro before Diego Buonanotte blazed over. Silva’s puff of his cheeks suggested he was pleased with a point earned from just 29% of the ball.
BRIGHTON AND HOVE ALBION (3-4-3): Steele; Webster, Igor, Dunk; Adringa (Veltman 71), Mitoma, Baleba (Buonanotte 71), Dahoud (Gilmour 71); Groß, Lallana (Ansu Fati 58); Ferguson (Joao Pedro 78). Subs (not used): Verbruggen, van Hecke, Hinshelwood, Milner.
GOAL: Ferguson (26).
FULHAM (4-2-3-1): Leno; Castagne, A. Robinson, Bassey, Ream; Palhinha, Reed (Pereira 58); De Cordova-Reid (Wilson 58), Willian (Cairney 86), Iwobi (Lukic 90+2), Jimenez (Muniz 58). Subs (not used): Rodak, de Fougerolles, Tanton, Ballo-Toure.
BOOKED: Robinson, Muniz, Wilson.
GOAL: Palhinha (65).
REFEREE: Michael Salisbury (Lancashire).
ATTENDANCE: 31,550.
Must say Joao was fortunate to be on the pitch after what was an uncharacteristic – and to my eyes premeditated – forearm smash. However the VAR gods/goons were on our side today for a change. Having said that, what a strike! I wonder if Silva has considered playing him up front. He couldn’t be any worse than our current options.
Our real problem is lack of a real striker.Jiminez hardly touched the ball and looked completely void of confidence even Muniz looked a vast improvement when he came on the as a substitute. It a shame we cannot recall Stansfield as he far superior then the three supposed strikers who ar in the first tram squad. Have we got anyone in the under 23’s we could give a game. He cannot be any worse
That would have to be the worst first half ever we did nothing except stand and watch the only player to try and get the ball was Iwobi, i would have taken the 3 players off in the first half, all 3 were useless and Reed gifted them their goal and couldn’t be bothered to at least chase back, once again our distribution was awful so too was Pereira free kicks and corners, how Joao was not sent off I will never know but thank god he wasn’t but he needs to cut that out because the next time we will be down to 10 men. We really have to get a good striker in January as the 3 we have are not good enough we also need a right sided central defender and a attacking midfielder, Marco can’t start with the same players that he did today they deserved to be taken off and we really need to put more effort in they showed no fight whatsoever we were lucky to get anything from the game.
From Marco’s comments, Joao Palhinha is being prepared for captaincy.