Manor Solomon strikes again to salvage draw for Fulham against Wolves

Fulham 1 Wolves 1

If Manor Solomon carries on like this, Marco Silva may never want to hand him his first Premier League start. The Israeli came off the bench for the third successive game and scored, cancelling out Pablo Sarabia’s first goal for Wolves as Fulham battled back to maintain their hopes of a top-six finish.

Signed from Shakhtar Donetsk in the summer, a knee injury meant Solomon has only previously made the starting line-up in the FA Cup but he has found the net against Nottingham Forest, Brighton and now Wolves after being introduced at the break with his side trailing here.

But while Julen Lopetegui’s side will be frustrated after an excellent first-half display, at least they managed to stop Fulham from recording the highest points tally by a promoted team after 25 fixtures of a 38-match Premier League season.

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They now have 39 in the bag, although Silva had insisted beforehand that he would leave dreaming of playing in Europe next season to Fulham’s supporters in spite of their surprising success so far with a team largely comprised of players who have already experienced relegation and – in some cases such as Harrison Reed – twice. Given that they had not beaten Wolves here in the Premier League since a 5-0 thrashing in 2012, he had every reason to take his usual pragmatic approach to this encounter.

Wolves have improved significantly under Lopetegui but came to London having picked up only two points from their five previous visits this season. Mario Lemina returned from suspension against his former club and Raúl Jiménez was chosen to lead the line.

In the continued absence of their top scorer Aleksandar Mitrovic, Silva turned to Carlos Vinícius in Fulham’s only change from the smash and grab victory over Brighton that cemented sixth position last weekend. The Brazilian could not get on the end of the first testing cross to arrive from Bobby Decordova-Reid after 10 minutes before Tim Ream was forced to intervene at the other end when Matheus Nunes found space down the left.

A booking for the hugely influential João Palhinha for bringing down Matheus Cunha – his 10th of the season that will mean he misses their next two matches – was the first major blow to Fulham. But having allowed Sarabia a sighter moments before that ended up with him shooting straight at Bernd Leno, the Spaniard would not make the same mistake twice.

It was Sarabia who started the move in midfield, before a deep cross from Nunes to the back post was headed down by Jiménez perfectly into his path to apply the finish for the 30-year-old’s first goal since joining from Paris Saint-Germain last month.

Despite the promptings of the home supporters, Fulham struggled to mount a response against opponents who gave them no space in midfield and always looked dangerous on the break. A header from Vinícius that was easily saved by José Sá was at least a signal of intent, as was the free-kick from Andreas Pereira that the Wolves goalkeeper tipped over in the last action of the first half.

Silva made two changes at the break as Reed and Decordova-Reid made way for Forest and Brighton hero Solomon and the new signing Sasa Lukic for his debut. Yet it was Wolves who picked up where they had left off as Jiménez headed over from Hugo Bueno’s cross before narrowly missing the target when he was picked out again by Nunes.

Lopetegui was left fuming when both Sarabia and Cunha went down under heavy challenges and Fulham refused to put the ball out. The referee Michael Oliver stepped in to calm down tempers but Cunha had to be replaced by Adama Traoré after being stretchered off.

The delay was to prove crucial as within five minutes Fulham were level. There seemed to be no danger when Solomon received the ball on the left touchline but moments later it was in the net after a dazzling run and shot past Sá from the edge of the area.

Fulham’s fans hoped that a VAR check when Ream went down in the area might give them even more cause to celebrate but they had to settle for a share of the spoils despite a frantic eight minutes of added time that saw Sá deny Vinícius with a full stretch save from Kenny Tete’s cross. – Guardian