Fulham lack ruthless touch as Manchester United deliver familiar sucker punch at Craven Cottage | OneFootball

Lisandro Martinez scored with the visitors’ only shot on target of the match

So many times already this season, Marco Silva has bemoaned his side’s propensity to let utterly dominant performances count for nothing. Manchester United were the latest beneficiaries.

The game's only goal — Fulham’s head-drop moment — was just the sort of good fortune United were going to need. They had been woeful, and Fulham had made them look such. Lisandro Martinez’s speculative strike from range took a wicked nick off Sasa Lukic’s foot and looped cruelly over Bernd Leno and in.

For all their snappy passing and penetration into the final third, they sorely lacked that final punch and were made to pay.

Clips of Silva’s pre-match press conference were doing the rounds online ahead of this game. The Fulham manager could be seen robustly and repeatedly taking one broadcast journalist to task for framing every question about Fulham’s successful season in relation to United’s own travails.

Silva is well known to feel his side do not get the credit they deserve (he’s right). His remit and his concern, he argued, is Fulham. Not United.

This was a frustrating night for Fulham boss Marco Silva

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It is almost guaranteed with a ticket to Craven Cottage these days that Fulham supporters will be treated to a positive, slick performance from their side. Positive results are not always such reliable currency, however, and to taste defeat courtesy of their visitors’ one and only shot on target all evening will have left a decidedly bitter taste in the mouth.

To lose Harry Wilson to injury shortly after the restart will compound matters in Silva’s head. The Welshman has grown in stature as a Fulham player this season; a long lay-off would be a blow.

Fulham came into the game three places above United in the table and as the favourites, but by the end it was a familiar feeling. This fixture saw the Red Devils nick a winner in stoppage time both of the last times they had visited. This time, it was the manner of the fortuitous winner and the high level of Fulham’s own performance that will have so frustrated the hosts.

Raul Jimenez, though he missed two chances in this one, is an entirely different beast this season — his hold-up play so much more reliable now he has his confidence back.

Alex Iwobi ran the game for long periods with his wily dribbling through United’s midfield, while Sander Berge and Calvin Bassey nipped in to win the ball throughout. After a first goal since early November last weekend, Emile Smith Rowe’s level moved up another notch again, as he gradually works his way back up to the form he so delighted Fulham by instantly finding upon his August move from Arsenal.

Joachim Andersen so nearly levelled late on, but substitute Toby Collyer cleared his header off the line. Fulham could not have got much closer.

Like Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth and Brentford, they have been so impressive this season. But games like this, when they have played so well, still hold them back. Some teams just find a way. Fulham are not yet one of them.