Fulham 0-0 Everton

A dominant Fulham were held to a goalless draw by Everton in Saturday’s early evening kick-off at Craven Cottage.

The Whites had 24 efforts on goal as they took the game to their opponents, but just could not find a way through.

That was largely in thanks to Jordan Pickford in the Toffees goal who made a number of terrific saves – one to deny Willian in the first half being particularly impressive.

Marco Silva made two changes to the side that defeated Leeds United six days previous, with Issa Diop and Neeskens Kebano preferred to Tosin and Harry Wilson who both dropped to the bench, where they were joined by the fit again Kenny Tete.

Willian started and ended a promising move in the fifth minute which culminated in him heading wide from Andreas Pereira’s cross, but Everton then went straight up the other end from the goal-kick and nearly scored through Anthony Gordon. Antonee Robinson made a great last ditch block to keep the score level.

The visitors kept the pressure on from the subsequent corner, and Bernd Leno had to be at his best to palm Demarai Gray’s vicious rising strike over the bar.

It was a stunning stop, and Pickford followed suit soon after. He had no right to keep out Willian’s shot on the spin, and he was at it again from the corner as he tipped Aleksandar Mitrović’s header over.

The England number one then made it a hat-trick of saves in around a minute. Harrison Reed had time to pick his spot from 20 yards and bend one into the postage stamp, but Pickford was there again to push it behind.

Having been right under the cosh, Everton showed their attacking threat once again in the 20^th minute when Gray bent a lovely ball across the face that Dominic Calvert-Lewin could only skew wide with a touch that actually took it off the toes of his teammate Gordon.

It was a highly entertaining contest with Fulham next to attack. Conor Coady almost diverted Robinson’s low cross into his own net, before Andreas volleyed wide from the corner that followed.

Tim Ream then glanced an Andreas delivery narrowly wide having stayed up from a free-kick.

At the other end, a short corner routine culminated in Gray picking out James Tarkowski who got plenty of power on his header, but thankfully it was straight at Leno.

The tempo was kept up right from the off in the second half, with Fulham wanting a penalty when Idrissa Gueye got none of the ball but a bit of Willian. Neither referee John Brooks nor VAR saw anything wrong.

Mitrović then held off his man to glance Andreas’ inswinging cross towards goal, but it just cleared the crossbar.

Willian – who had become the Brazilian with the most ever Premier League appearances with this game – cut inside on 52 minutes and bent one on target which Pickford parried away.

Two chances fell Mitrović’s way in quick succession after the hour mark, but he wasn’t quite able to get the control that he would have liked on either of his volleys.

Everton were defending deeper and deeper as the half wore on, making it trickier for the Whites to create chances, though substitute Tom Cairney did see a shot deflect wide, before teeing up Willian for an effort that was saved by Pickford.

It just hadn’t happened for Mitrović unfortunately, as was the case again when he volleyed substitute Tete’s centre over while off balance in the 90^th minute – an effort which proved to be the last chance of the game.