More woe for Fulham as they lose at Palace

Crystal Palace 2 Fulham 0

Fulham failed to build on their thrilling midweek win – turning in a tame performance to lose on their travels again.

They fell behind to a penalty midway through the first half at Selhurst Park – needlessly given away by Cyrus Christie – and never looked like getting back into the match, before Jeffrey Schlupp put them out of their misery with a second goal.

Chelsea loan striker Michy Batshuayi played a big part in that goal – coming off the bench to get in the shot which led to Schlupp’s tap-in.

The combination which brought Fulham their third goal in the midweek win over Brighton almost produced an opening goal – Joe Bryan’s cross headed narrowly wide by Aleksandar Mitrovic at the near post. But that was as near as Fulham came as they fell to an 11th defeat in 13 Premier League away games.

The Whites fell behind on 25 minutes after a panicking Christie threw up an arm to prevent a James McArthur cross from the right reaching the head of Christian Benteke.

Luka Milivojevic’s spot-kick had too much pace for Sergio Rico, even though the Fulham stopper got a touch as the ball flew past him.

Benteke almost made it 2-0 before the break when he smacked a spectacular bicycle kick onto the crossbar after some trickery from Andros Townsend to create space for a cross.

Claudio Ranieri brought on Luciano Vietto for Tim Ream at the start of the second half to try and give Fulham greater menace but it was Palace who always looked more likely to score.

Rico kept out near-post efforts from Jordan Ayew and Schlupp and Mamadou Sakho glanced a header just wide at the far post.

There was one turn and rising shot from outside the area by Mitrovic, but the Whites failed to seriously trouble Vicente Guaita in the Palace goal.

Schlupp put the game out of reach in the 87th when he reacted quickest after Rico had parried a powerful shot from Batshuayi.