Bournemouth 2-1 Fulham

Fulham's difficult run of form continued on the South Coast, as Bournemouth overturned our early advantage.

Andreas Pereira got the Whites off to a dream start, finishing off a silky move to see us into half-time ahead, but Marcus Tavernier and then Dominic Solanke reversed the deficit in the second period.

Following on from events at Old Trafford last time out, there were two changes to the team in mint green both coming in attack, as Carlos Vinicius and Manor Solomon replaced the suspended pair of Willian and Aleksandar Mitrović.

The game matched the weather in the opening moments, with neither side being able to quite warm-up to their best. Pereira broke away after winning the ball back on the halfway line, but lost his footing at the vital moment as he looked to wind one up from 25 yards.

10 minutes later and Fulham went ahead with a slick and silky move. Vinicius kicked things off with a lovely ball through to Manor Solomon down the left. He fed it into Harrison Reed, who composed himself and laid it off it to the onrushing Pereira to slot it calmly home. Following a VAR check for a possible Solomon offside, the goal was awarded and the Fulham faithful could celebrate properly.

Marco Silva’s men showed no let-up after opening the scoring and almost got a cushion a short while later following continued pressure. After some positive play down the right the ball found its’ way to Antonee Robinson, who unleashed an absolute rocket first-time from range onto the crossbar.

The Cherries started to find a slight foothold in the game and went close to a leveller just after the half hour mark had passed. Solanke drove forward and combined with Philip Billing to allow Dango Ouattara an effort on goal, sliding a shot narrowly wide of Bernd Leno’s left post to give Fulham a slight scare.

The Whites regained their grip on the game in the run up to half-time and went close to a second through our Brazilian maestro yet again. Bobby De Cordova-Reid teed an inviting ball over the top to Pereira, who took one touch to control before turning full acrobat mode and going for a bicycle kick which wasn’t too far away from nestling in the net.

Just before the interval there was another warning sign from Gary O’Niel’s team, after Ouattara’s close range effort was rifled onto the crossbar, only for the flag to go up for offside swiftly anyway.

The second half start was about as under the cosh as it could get for Fulham as Bournemouth flew out of the traps, and almost got an equaliser through substitute Tavernier if not for a goal-line block from Tim Ream.

The ball simply wouldn’t leave the Fulham half and the team in black and red capitalised on this to get on level terms. Recycling the ball from a corner, Tavernier cut inside onto his left from the right and curled one into the far corner leaving Leno with no chance.

Tavernier was a man on a mission and had another clear sight on goal next, but this time our German international stood firm to keep out a blasted effort from close.

Silva’s side managed to reset and go again for the next period of the contest, and returned to being a threat to the Bournemouth back line, with a Vinicius shot on the spin and a Pereira header going close.

With 10 minutes left on the clock Bournemouth went ahead. Ryan Christie’s initial effort was saved from Leno, before Solanke bundled it over the line on the rebound.

Marco Silva played all his cards with a muiltitude of substitutions, but in the end the Cherries tasted all three points.