6 hours ago
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Raúl Jiménez will turn 35 in May yet Fulham’s Mexican striker remains as vital to Marco Silva’s team as ever.
It is now approaching six years since his career was placed in serious jeopardy by a skull fracture but Jiménez exhibited precious few signs of wear and tear as his latest two goals, a second-half header and a penalty, sunk Sunderland.
Although Enzo Le Fée’s spot-kick briefly reduced the deficit, Alex Iwobi’s deft chip ensured Fulham’s victory, leaving the home side to rue the two clearcut chances missed by Romaine Mundle and Nilson Angulo.
While Silva’s players ended a run of three straight Premier League defeats, Régis Le Bris’s team are facing their first real wobble since winning last spring’s playoff final and are suffering a scoring drought from open play.
Their manager chose to address it by fielding a very attacking starting XI but the team’s balance did not seem quite right. Part of the problem was that, with Le Bris’s two new January signings, Jocelin and Angulo keen to serve as touchline hugging wingers, Fulham were able to find gaps in central midfield.
Angulo, an Ecuador international was signed from Anderlecht, while the Ivorian Jocelin, arrived from Maccabi Netanya where, intriguingly, he had failed to make a single first-team appearance and spent most of his two years on loan in Israel’s second tier.
Here both wingers alternated between moments of real menace and potentially self destructive naivety but Jocelin’s debut ended after 39 minutes when injury forced his replacement by Mundle.
With the influential Nordi Mukiele having earlier limped off with calf trouble and replaced by Lutsharel Geertruida at right-back, Sunderland were slightly destabilised and not for the first time relied on the midfield nous of Le Fée and Noah Sadiki to prevent a sometimes less than urgent Fulham from taking advantage.
At this stage Silva’s technical area body language suggested an increasing exasperation with his team. It turned temporarily to something nearer despair as Oscar Bobb, on for the injured Kevin, lost possession and allowed Habib Diarra to break.
Diarra ultimately shot wastefully over the bar but Silva had received a reminder that the Norway attacking midfielder, a £27m January arrival from Manchester City, is adept at creating danger at both ends. That represented a rare opening in a game where the goalkeepers, Robin Roefs and Bernd Leno, were initially underworked and Sunderland’s lone striker Brian Brobbey found himself frequently isolated.
Jiménez too endured a quiet if deceptive opening half. Not as Sunderland discovered to their cost he should ever be left unattended. Their failure to mark the Mexican properly from Iwobi’s corner resulted in Jiménez heading Fulham into a 54th-minute lead.
No home player looked unhappier than Mundle; moments earlier the left winger had missed a glorious chance, curling his shot wide after being put through by Geertruida’s fine, defence bisecting pass.
It did not take Jiménez long to score a second goal. When Brobbey tugged Calvin Bassey’s shot in the area, it prompted a video assistant review and after the referee Craig Pawson had been called to the pitchside monitor he duly pointed to the spot after all.
Silva’s attacking talisman stepped forward and sent Roefs the wrong way. It was his 11th goal in all competitions this season and prefaced Le Bris making a series of substitutions that included the reintroduction of his captain Granit Xhaka after an ankle injury. Xhaka’s ever inspirational presence briefly lifted Sunderland and they swiftly won a penalty when Ryan Sessegnon brought Dan Ballard down.
With Leno confounded by Le Fée’s 12-yard kick, the contest briefly reignited. Not that it took long for Sunderland’s resistance to be broken by Harry Wilson’s splendid counterattacking pass and Iwobi’s superlative chip over the advancing Roefs.
As the home fans fell eerily silent, a suddenly smiling Silva could barely stop applauding his players.
