Fulham endured a bitter start to the Premier League season as they suffered a third successive defeat, leaving them at the bottom of the table with zero points from three matches. Despite creating more high-quality chances than their opponents, with an expected goals (xG) tally of 3.13 compared to Crystal Palace’s 1.97, the Cottagers could not convert their dominance into results.<\/p>\n
The poor display prompted booing from sections of the home crowd, alongside chants questioning the team’s performances. Manager Arbeloa, who brings extensive experience from a playing career that included over 350 appearances for Real Madrid, Deportivo La Coruna, Liverpool, and West Ham, knows well the weight of pressure. The former Spain international, who won two European Championships and a World Cup between 2008 and 2012, stepped into management after four months as Real Madrid’s caretaker boss.<\/p>\n
During his tenure at the Bernabeu, overseeing the final 28 matches of last season following Xabi Alonso’s departure, Arbeloa recorded 18 wins, two draws, and eight defeats. However, as a former defender, he will have been particularly keen to avoid conceding three goals, especially given the manner in which they fell in this match.<\/p>\n
“We were really unlucky in this goal,” Arbeloa said regarding Palace’s second strike. “If Fulham can keep creating chances in the way they did against Palace, the victories should come.”<\/p>\n
Despite his optimism, the prospect of entering the international break with zero, or very few, points is a distinct possibility. Arbeloa faces immediate scrutiny with upcoming fixtures against two of his former clubs: a trip to Liverpool followed by a home Carabao Cup third-round tie against West Ham, and a league meeting with Manchester United.<\/p>\n
The situation is dire statistically. Only six Premier League teams have ever begun a season with five straight defeats, and historically, only two of those sides have managed to avoid relegation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fulham were booed off after falling to a third consecutive defeat, leaving them winless after three matches under manager Arbeloa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2196,2195,318,2194,319,627],"class_list":["post-1038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-arbeloa","tag-crystal-palace","tag-football","tag-fulham","tag-premier-league","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}