Thankfully a winning start. Quite rare for us.

Great start with Neto scoring in the first minute.awful mistake from Sanchez for their equaliser .

We looked good going forward, but defensively, we’ve got to sort it out.

Palmer looks back to his best. Not going to the World Cup was the rest and recovery he needed.

And very probably it’s given him motivation!

Neto and Rogers look very sharp.

Hopefully we build on this win.

Just my humble opinion.

The goals from last night.

Great game of football and a million miles away from the complete dross we had to suffer under Maresca and Rosenoir.

Seeing Cole Palmer enjoying his football again and putting in that sort of performance was a joy to watch. We could and should have scored 5 or 6.

But we could all predict where our problems would lie this season and of course Sanchez is the main negative. He HAS to be replaced. Once a clown, always a clown. All the time he is in goal, and especially whilst we are sorting out the defence and midfield, we will have to keep outscoring teams, and as exciting as that is, we won't always be able to do it.

It's always nice to start the season with a win. It was nice to watch our offensive play, our trio made a lot of trouble in front. Palmer could have score more than one, but it was a good performance, he was lively and happy to play.

We do need to improve defensively that's for sure, even in the pre-season we conceded easy goals.

Focus on the next game, good start! COME ON CHELS!

At the risk of sounding like a parrot thoroughly enjoyed watching the front 3 and the genuine and constant threat they provided but would still happily swap Enzo for somebody who could provide more creativity from deeper.

Enjoyed the performance though and great to see players with the the freedom to express themselves and to actually look like they are enjoying the game.

Groundhog Day with Sanchez who (obviously) remains a massive problem really hands the momentum to the opposition (even when they are struggling) with the amount of errors that lead to goals. Never looked comfortable from his first involvement and that moment when he dilly dallied and let the ball run out just all to familiar, must be soul destroying to play with at times. Not sure how we solve do we take a chance on Penders in the way that United did with their young lad last season who seems to have done ok with them in the League or do we go all out and try and find a replacement before window closes, if so then who?

Colwill defended more like Fofana at times in a difficult night for him but give the benefit of the doubt after being out for so long but needs to settle quickly. Lacroix impressed me on debut, Josh I thought did ok (one great block) but really needs to play regularly at this level to push on hopefully and become consistent in his performance not sure if he will get the chances without Europe or best PL loan.

Good to also see Lavia out there playing , would be a great fit with Moises if can stay fit and will get better the more game time he can manage.

9 hours ago, KonaKai Blue said:

Good result but we wont come close to being title challengers.

We have several passengers in team like Gusto and a horrific goalkeeper.

After such a good start, once again we drop off and allow the opposition to gain composure.

I like that we are not so possession heavy, doing nothing with the ball but we must find away to block out direct play and our gaps being exposed.

We hopefully won't see too much of either for the rest of the season.

What was so good last night, was seeing players on the ball you really want to see on it. I hardly noticed Gusto was on the pitch first half whereas under Maresca he saw more of the ball than anyone. I think folk have gone a bit OTT on Colwill and Hato. Admittedly Colwill was poor last night - probably the worst game I have seen him have. But best he gets that one out his system and once the defenders form a better understanding and have Caicedo back in front of them and hopefully a better, more trustworthy keeper behind them, we will look a lot better, and Colwill will be fine. Hato is still only 20 and will make mistakes, but again, with more game time he will improve.

4 minutes ago, Nibs said:

We hopefully won't see too much of either for the rest of the season.

What was so good last night, was seeing players on the ball you really want to see on it. I hardly noticed Gusto was on the pitch first half whereas under Maresca he saw more of the ball than anyone. I think folk have gone a bit OTT on Colwill and Hato. Admittedly Colwill was poor last night - probably the worst game I have seen him have. But best he gets that one out his system and once the defenders form a better understanding and have Caicedo back in front of them and hopefully a better, more trustworthy keeper behind them, we will look a lot better, and Colwill will be fine. Hato is still only 20 and will make mistakes, but again, with more game time he will improve.

Don't mind not seeing Gusto on the ball but I still want to see more of a threat when he does have it. Palmer refused to pass to him on a few occasions which told me his end product wasnt to be trusted. This is my issues playing too many defenders. Not good enough in attacking phases and still look vulnerable when on defence.

I really hope that will be Colwill's worst game of the season. Was playing with fire on a yellow.

3 hours ago, erskblue said:

Thankfully a winning start. Quite rare for us.

Great start with Neto scoring in the first minute.awful mistake from Sanchez for their equaliser .

We looked good going forward, but defensively, we’ve got to sort it out.

Palmer looks back to his best. Not going to the World Cup was the rest and recovery he needed.

And very probably it’s given him motivation!

Neto and Rogers look very sharp.

Hopefully we build on this win.

Just my humble opinion.

Did you confuse joao pedro with pedro neto twice?

I can maybe understand once when speaking, but twice while typing?! 🤣

2 hours ago, erskblue said:

The goals from last night.

Seeing Fulham's chances again this morning has really hammered home how bad Sanchez was. He flatters to deceive sometimes by occasionally producing some Hollywood saves and convincing people with goldfish memories that he's a good "shot stopper", but he is not - the first Fulham goal was just embarrassing, and the way he rebounded the ball directly onto Garcia's head for their second was the assist of the match in a match with some impressive assists (Palmer for Pedro, Lacroix for Rogers, Pedro for palmer). It started even before the Fulham goal; when he fluffed King's longshot at about 20 mins I knew it was going to be an interesting night (and King was nailed on to score).

At the other end of the scale, that was the best match Palmer's had in ages. He seemed to be enjoying himself and our front three showed some good chemistry. Pedro's finish for the first goal was class, and if he had gotten that volley from Palmer's cross on target it would have been a fantastic goal (people reacting with "should have scored" after that don't have a clue). Lacroix also impressed me, and as a centre back he had no business assisting Rogers for his debut goal in the way he did.

There's still a lot of room for improvement in defence and in goal, but it felt like a massive upgrade on the impotent sideways football Pep Junior and Linkedin Liam had us playing.

very good result for a lot of reasons, I actually enjoyed watching us for the first time in a long while. Season off to a flyer with 3 points and a good attacking performance. roll on the next game

When your attackers play with a smile on their face they are happy, confident and able to express themselves.

There was an energy about the team last night something that had been sucked out of them under EM and LR. There was a determination not to hand over two points to FFC who didn’t deserve it.

And the best bit is there are soo many improvements we can make. Far from our best 11. Colwill will improve he’s been out a long time, once our wing backs get going, MC in the middle. Rogers scored but looked a little behind Cole and Pedro(which he is) so will get better.

I’m just happy watching the game again. The possession stat surprised me but when we had it we played with a tempo and a threat which was great to watch.

We need to sign another midfileder, or even two if Enzo goes, which looks more certain with every day. Supposedly Essugo is being loaned out, which leaves us with Caicedo, Lavia and possibly James as midfield options. Lavia is a walking injury, Reece is not realy a midfielder and also has injury concerns.

This match was a great example of our problems. The moment Caicedo is out, we lose any semblance of control in the middle of the pitch. Xabi is an intelligent man and surely he knows that better than anybody.

9 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

It's also not a coincidence that our attack looked vastly improved. By Chelsea ceding possession, Fulham couldn't use a low block or their pace on the counter-attack. We had far more control when we actually ceded possession. Fulham's strongest period was in the lead up to and around the King goal, where we were trying to counter-press, and that faded out in the second-half where the team settled off the ball.

Why are fans even dragging this up? Possession for the sake of possession is exactly what sucked the joy out of football under Maresca. These are the types of matches we’d have spent 90 minutes passing sideways, looking utterly clueless about how to break down a low block. Today, we were carving them open on almost every transition.

Honestly, our fanbase seems determined to be miserable no matter what.

Blimey! A game I actually enjoyed, and with a couple of players unavailable we should improve on that performance.

The usual nonsense at the back but I thought Lecroix was very good, as were the front 3. Our 2 early yellow cards to Lavia and Colwill put them both on a knife edge and didn't help

And Palmer in that form was a joy to watch, good to see him back on form

Come on you BLUES !

Few point from me

Positive

Front 3 specifically Palmer. If Palmer can recover his form, we will have a very good season.

Lacroix

He had a very good debut. Back 3 in low/mid block mean he didn't feel like he left palace.

Acheampong

Josh I thought was excellent. I pointed out Palestra 1v1 defense problem Josh on the other hand is very good at this.

Negative

3 attacker + 7 defender

One game is fine but it is hard to do this for whole season. Furthermore this is not an ideal setup for the makeup of the squad

Roger defense.

This is back to back game where he need to defend more. I gave him a break for Sociedad game but same problem vs Fulham.

On 25/08/2026 at 05:28, Sexyfootball said:

Our centre backs by numbers today :

Josh was pretty decent I'd say !

I found a lot opinion on this forum to be absolutely bizzare. You can like/rate/not rate a player but the strength of the weakness of our player is so obvious

Edited August 26Aug 26 by Bob stark