Chelsea scraped a 2-0 win against Fulham in a match defined as much by VAR intervention as by the football on the pitch. Fulham began the brighter side, forcing turnovers and keeping the hosts under pressure for large spells early on, while Chelsea lost Liam Delap to a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n
Fulham appeared to take the lead when Josh King outpaced the Chelsea defence and finished beyond Robert S\u00e1nchez, but VAR ruled the goal out after deciding Rodrigo Muniz had fouled Trevoh Chalobah in the build up. The decision prompted visible anger from the Fulham bench and left Marco Silva frustrated.<\/p>\n
Chelsea went ahead before half-time from their fourth set-piece goal of the season. Jo\u00e3o Pedro met Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s corner with a header to give Enzo Maresca\u2019s side an undeserved lead at the break, despite Fulham having been the superior team in the opening 45 minutes.<\/p>\n
At the start of the second half further controversy arrived when Chelsea were awarded a penalty for a Ryan Sessegnon handball, even though Jo\u00e3o Pedro had handled the ball himself prior to the incident. Fern\u00e1ndez converted from the spot to make it 2-0.<\/p>\n
The delay for the decision and the second goal deflated Fulham, and Chelsea began to hold more sustained possession. Est\u00eav\u00e3o tested Bernd Leno with a low effort, and late in stoppage time Jo\u00e3o Pedro had to clear from the line to prevent a potential Fulham lifeline.<\/p>\n
Substitutions: Tyrique George replaced Liam Delap (15′), Jamie Gittens replaced Est\u00eav\u00e3o (68′), Andrey Santos replaced George (81′), Reece James replaced Pedro Neto (81′). Subs not used for Chelsea: Filip J\u00f8rgensen (GK), Jorrel Hato, Josh Acheampong, Wesley Fofana, D\u00e1rio Essugo.<\/p>\n
Chelsea player ratings included: Robert S\u00e1nchez 7.6; Malo Gusto 7.8; Trevoh Chalobah 7.9; Tosin Adarabioyo 7.7; Marc Cucurella 7.8; Mois\u00e9s Caicedo 8.1; Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez (c) 8.5; Est\u00eav\u00e3o 6.7; Jo\u00e3o Pedro 8.2; Pedro Neto 7.4; Liam Delap 5.7; Tyrique George 6.0; Jamie Gittens 6.2. Fulham starting XI: Bernd Leno; Kenny Tete, Joachim Andersen, Calvin Bassey; Timothy Castagne, Sander Berge, Sa\u0161a Luki\u0107; Alex Iwobi, Ryan Sessegnon; Joshua King, Rodrigo Muniz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea edged Fulham 2-0 in a VAR-heavy West London derby that featured a penalty and set-piece goal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,713,172],"tags":[680,242],"class_list":["post-2256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-fulham","category-epl","tag-estevao","tag-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}