There are afternoons when a football club can feel the ground shifting beneath its feet, and this was one of them. Fulham led Crystal Palace twice at Craven Cottage, played with verve and purpose for long stretches, and still found themselves beaten 3-2 as the light faded on a September Saturday. It was the kind of defeat that gnaws, because it was so avoidable, and because the consequences are so stark.

For an hour Fulham looked the likelier side, sharp on the break and dangerous through the middle. But Palace kept coming, kept believing, and in Tyrick Mitchell they found a full-back with the instincts of a poacher. His two goals, bookending a swing of momentum, dragged the visitors level each time Fulham threatened to pull clear. Then Ben Chilwell arrived to finish the job.

The result nudges Palace up to 13th, three points on the board and a first win of a stuttering start. For Fulham it is something bleaker: bottom of the Premier League, 18th, no points from three matches, a goal difference already sliding into the red. What had looked like a platform for revival became instead a reminder of how quickly a season can sour.

A bright beginning

Fulham could hardly have asked for a better start. Eleven minutes in, they broke at pace and Josh King finished it in ice-cold fashion, a left-footed strike from the centre of the box that curled beyond the goalkeeper and nestled into the bottom right corner. The Cottage roared, sensing that the wait for a first goal of the season might herald a first win to match.

For a while the plan looked sound. Fulham sat compact, invited Palace onto them, and looked to spring forward with menace whenever possession turned over. King's goal had come from exactly that template, a fast break exploited with clinical calm, and the home side seemed content to trade blows in the knowledge that their counter-attacking edge might prove decisive.

The trouble with such an approach is that it demands ruthless concentration, and Fulham's grip began to loosen. Palace grew into the contest, their movement sharper, their intent clearer. The equaliser, when it arrived, carried a warning that few in the home ranks appeared to heed. The lead had been earned; keeping it would prove another matter entirely.

Mitchell strikes twice

On 35 minutes, Palace levelled through the unlikeliest of scorers. Eddie Nketiah, breaking at speed, slid the ball to Tyrick Mitchell, and the full-back arrowed a left-footed shot from a difficult angle on the left into the bottom left corner. It was a finish of real quality, the sort a striker would have been proud of, and it silenced the Cottage in an instant.

Fulham's response was immediate and heartening. Three minutes later they were ahead again, César Palacios sweeping in a right-footed effort from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner. Two goals up in energy if not on the scoreboard, Fulham reached the interval nose in front and might have believed the worst was behind them.

It was not. Nine minutes into the second half, Mitchell struck again, this time from the centre of the box, a left-footed shot planted straight down the middle. Two goals from a defender told its own story of Fulham's fraying resolve. The visitors had drawn level for a second time, and now the momentum, so long the property of the home side, had changed hands for good.

Chilwell twists the knife

The winner came with 13 minutes remaining and bore the mark of a side that sensed blood. Daichi Kamada, all vision and composure, threaded the ball into the danger area and Ben Chilwell met it with a left-footed finish from the centre of the box, straight and true into the middle of the goal. Palace had turned a two-goal deficit in intensity into a lead they would not relinquish.

Fulham had no answer. The final stretch played out to a soundtrack of anxious groans, the home crowd watching a familiar tale unfold. Twice they had led, twice they had been reeled in, and now they trailed with the clock against them. There was no late reprieve, no equaliser to salvage a point that their first-half display had arguably deserved.

For Palace it was a triumph of persistence. They had been second best for long periods yet refused to accept the scoreline, and in Mitchell and Chilwell they had defenders willing to gamble in the opposition box. Three goals, three points, and a mood transformed. A start that had brought two defeats now has ballast, and 13th place offers a base from which to build.

The road ahead

The table makes uncomfortable reading at Craven Cottage. Fulham sit 18th, bottom of the Premier League, with no points and a goal difference of minus three after three matches. Four scored, seven conceded — the attack is functioning, but the defence is leaking at a rate no side can sustain. Twice taking the lead and losing is the kind of result that lingers in the memory and questions the temperament.

The concern is not effort but resilience. Fulham created, scored twice through King and Palacios, and carved out the better openings for an hour. Yet an inability to protect an advantage, to see out the moments that decide matches, has now cost them dearly. Three games, three defeats, and the pressure that accompanies a winless start begins to build.

Palace, by contrast, travel home with belief restored. One win, three points, 13th — modest numbers, but a first victory can be the loosening of a knot. Mitchell will remember this afternoon for a long time, and Chilwell's decisive strike carries the swagger of a side rediscovering its edge. Fulham must find answers, and quickly, before a difficult start hardens into something far harder to escape.