Chelsea made a dream start to the game and to the season, pressing high on Fulham’s first possession, forcing a turnover, and Cole Palmer finding Joao Pedro to finish with aplomb, 1-v-1 with the goalkeeper. There were 31 seconds on the clock: the fastest goal in our Premier League history, the fastest first goal for any team to begin the season.
Emboldened, we kept up the pressure and the intensity, creating multiple dangerous situations, but not quite finding the right final touch or final pass.
James did see a piledriver blocked while Palmer and Morgan Rogers both seemed to pass up presentable shooting opportunities.
Fulham eventually got over the shock of the first goal and started exerting some pressure of their own. Young Josh King was particularly threatening, and after causing some concern with his first driven effort, he would beat Robert Sánchez on 23 minutes … with a shot you’d expect your goalkeeper to save.
Emboldened by their bit of fortune, Fulham pressed for a quick second. Somehow we survived, despite some rather chaotic defending and emergency clearances.
Recent vintages of Chelsea may have simply collapsed from there, but impressively, we recovered our shape and confidence, and started dominating proceedings. This solid 10-minute spell led to a second goal, thanks to some great work from Maxence Lacroix, who turned into an attacking menace to set up fellow new signings Morgan Rogers for his first Chelsea goal.
Chelsea made a great start to the second half as well, and after Palmer let a great chance pass him by, he made no mistake from a tight angle to give us a two-goal lead in the 49th minute.
The home side unfortunately were not willing to give up, and some more questionable goalkeeping gifted them yet another goal barely five minutes later. Fulham followed that up with another big spell of pressure, which we were able to resist.
Both teams started making changes as we headed into the final 20 minutes, with the result very much feeling like it was hanging in the balance.
- The fastest ever Chelsea goal is 12 seconds — not far off!
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