Harry Wilson scored the winning goal from a free-kick in the 92nd minute as Fulham came back in the second half to beat Brighton 2-1, who had won just once in their last 10 league games.
Wilson scored his ninth goal of the season from 25 yards in stoppage time, his shot caught by goalkeeper Bert Verbruggen, infuriating Craven Cottage, who languished in mid-table Brighton, who have fallen from fifth place in this poor run of form.
Verbruggen was brought down in his own half despite taking the free-kick, and Brighton head coach Fabian Hürzeler did not blame the goalkeeper.
“We can’t put the blame on Bart. He’s had a great season, but sometimes things like this happen,” he said.
“Sometimes in football you can’t control everything. Young players make mistakes and we have to protect them, learn from them and give them confidence that they can do better next time.”
Fulham fell behind in the first half as Yassin Ayari fired a rocket past Bernd Leno at his near post despite the goalkeeper’s fingertips on the ball.
Brighton had been holding on until that moment, but they were soon two points behind as Kaoru Mitoma was denied by Leno and Ferdy Kadioglu’s header from the rebound was cleared on the line by Timothy Castagne.
Fulham equalized in the second half when substitute Samuel Chukwueze rushed forward from a long ball from Joachim Andersen and calmly passed Verbruggen from a narrow angle.
But Brighton thought they were back in front after just 80 seconds. Fulham looked to score a second goal, but Mito was caught on the counter as he slipped in to Danny Welbeck, who eventually slotted past Leno, only for the goal to be ruled out for offside by VAR.
Welbeck was then denied with a header by Leno, but it looked like the game was headed for a draw, but some last-minute magic from Wilson earned Fulham a point and moved them into seventh place.
Hürzeler: “Soccer is cruel”
Brighton manager Fabian Hürzeler:
“We were very strong, we created a lot of chances and we were the better team, but that’s football.
“Football is cruel and therefore we have to accept that, but we are happy with the performance and we are all very disappointed with the result.
“We controlled everything we could control. You can’t control VAR, you can’t control individual errors. But I think if we had played a perfect game we would have won, but we didn’t.”
Silva: “A draw would have been fair”
Fulham manager Marco Silva:
“It’s a big win for us. In my opinion, the fair result should probably be a draw. I think it’s tough for them to lose the game in the way they lost.”
“There were moments when we could have gotten more out of the game and we didn’t. That turned into our advantage this afternoon and we got the big three points.”
