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 lineup 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 was frustrated by the way his side faded following 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.
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 once and – in some cases such as Harrison Reed – twice. Given that they still have not beaten Wolves here in the Premier League since a 5-0 thrashing in 2012, he was grateful that another magic moment from Solomon was enough to rescue a point.
“We were not at the level we have been used to and we made it easy for them in the first half,” admitted Silva. “But our dynamic was much better in the second half and Manor showed the quality that he has. He’s not ready to play 90 minutes yet but has scored some important goals for us – he is different from what we already have here.”
Wolves have improved significantly under Lopetegui but came to London having picked up only two points from their five previous visits this season and smarting from the defeat to Bournemouth. This result gives them some more breathing space over the bottom three but the former Spain and Real Madrid manager acknowledged it could have been much more.
“We came here looking for three points and we have one point more,” said Lopetegui. “It’s a very difficult place to come and we played in a good way. It’s not enough but we must keep fighting.”
In the continued absence of their top scorer Aleksandar Mitrovic, Silva turned to Carlos Vinícius to lead his attack and the Brazilian almost won it at the death with a late header. But otherwise he lacked the Serbian’s physical presence in attack and it was not until Solomon’s introduction that they looked threatening.
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 – less than 15 minutes in 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 Matheus Nunes to the back post was headed down by Raúl 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.
Solomon and the Serbia midfielder Sasa Lukic were brought on at half-time by Silva in an attempt to rouse his side from their slumber. But 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 Tim 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.
