At least Jesse Marsch proved he learned something from Thursday’s debacle at Leicester.
He made a point of walking around the pitch after the full-time whistle to applaud the home fans after the travelling support turned on him at the King Power Stadium for failing to acknowledge them.
Not that it bought Marsch any credit with the Elland Road faithful and they responded with more boos than applause as they chanted “what the f***ing hell was that?” following Leeds' 3-2 defeat by Fulham on Sunday afternoon. The Leeds board, who were also targeted by the supporters, are prepared to be patient with Marsch, but a growing number of fans feel his time should be up.
This damaging loss by Fulham plunged Leeds into the bottom three for the first time this season and they are two points below the safety line. It is hard to see where the next point, yet alone win, is coming from for Leeds and this fourth straight loss makes it just two draws from their last eight matches.
Their creditable display in losing to Arsenal last Sunday seems a lifetime ago and although this performance was an improvement on Leicester, their defending was still shocking.
All three Fulham goals came from Leeds errors and whatever Marsch is doing all week on the training pitch, it clearly isn’t working. It increasingly looks like Marsch’s Elland Road reign has gone past the tipping point and Leeds are locked in a downwards spiral. Marsch has managed just one point from six games and Marcelo Bielsa was sacked in February for a similar run.
Fulham deserved their fifth league win of the season, which matches their total from when they were relegated in 2021. Boss Marco Silva has guided them to seventh, above Liverpool.
They were helped by Leeds’ glaring vulnerability and Marc Roca made a goal-saving block to deny the impressive Harrison Reed an early opener.
Leeds’ fragile confidence was boosted when they took the lead on 20 minutes when Jack Harrison’s shot was deflected off Tim Ream and Rodrigo nodded in his fifth Premier League goal of the campaign at the back post. But Leeds are a mistake waiting to happen and sure enough they dropped a clanger to allow Fulham to level just six minutes later.
Aleksandar Mitrovic lost Luke Ayling, on his first start of the season, to get his head to Andreas Perreira’s near-post corner and Illan Meslier fumbled the ball into the net.
Meslier made partial amends when he saved Perreira’s shot and Bernd Leno then denied substitute Patrick Bamford. The game was on a knife edge and Mitrovic should have put Fulham in front when he was left unmarked to head over from Perreira’s free-kick.
Leeds failed to heed this warning and fell behind on 74 minutes through some more awful defending. They failed to clear Perreira’s corner and when the former Manchester United winger played the ball back in, Bobby De Cordova-Reid was left totally unmarked to head home.
Fulham settled the contest six minutes from time when Reed jinked his way past Robin Koch and Ayling on the near touchline before pulling the ball back for Willian to slot home.
Leeds reduced the arrears in the first minute of stoppage time to pause the exodus of their fans when Joe Gelhardt fed Crysencio Summerville to score his first Whites goal, but it was of little consolation to the home side.
