Sanchez let in a near-post shot and spilled another, and Chelsea still won Xabi Alonso’s first game
Joao Pedro scored after 31 seconds at Craven Cottage, the fastest opening-matchweek goal the Premier League has had. Chelsea won 3-2, and both of Fulham’s goals came through their goalkeeper.
Aug 25, 2026
Chelsea were ahead at Craven Cottage before some of the ground had sat down. Cole Palmer slid a ball through, Joao Pedro ran onto it and dinked it over the goalkeeper, and the clock read 31 seconds. No player has scored faster on the opening matchweek of a Premier League season. Xabi Alonso’s first match in charge had begun about as well as a match can begin.
It ended 3-2, and the winning manager spent a chunk of the evening watching his goalkeeper hand Fulham a way back into it.
Two goals, two mistakes
Josh King levelled in the 23rd minute with a drive that Robert Sanchez got a hand to and let through at his near post. It was hit hard. It was also the kind of shot a Premier League goalkeeper is expected to keep out, and Sanchez went down to it and made a mess of it.
The second was worse. Chelsea were 3-1 up when Sanchez spilled a save he had gathered cleanly a hundred times before, and Gonzalo Garcia was standing exactly where the ball dropped. Fifty-four minutes, 3-2, and a game Chelsea had looked like putting away suddenly had half an hour of nerves attached to it.
Gary Neville was not gentle about it afterwards, saying Sanchez undermines Chelsea and that Alonso should replace him. That is one pundit’s view on the first weekend of a season, and Alonso has not said anything close to it. But Sanchez looked jumpy for most of the ninety minutes, and both of Fulham’s goals went through him.
The front three did what they were bought to do
The rest of it was much better reading for Alonso. Morgan Rogers scored in the 41st minute on his Chelsea debut, which is a decent first return on the £117m they paid Aston Villa for him. Palmer got the third four minutes after half-time, having already set up the first, and looked like a player who had put a difficult, injury-broken year behind him.
Joao Pedro, Rogers and Palmer between them accounted for all three goals and the assist for the opener. Chelsea spent close to 410 million euros this summer and the argument for it is going to be made by that front three or not at all. On night one they scored three away from home in a west London derby, which is the sort of evidence Alonso will happily take.
The other side of it is that Chelsea conceded twice to a team that finished eleventh last season, one place below them, and Palmer came off late looking like he was carrying something. Enzo Fernandez, meanwhile, was jeered by the home end when he came on.
Arbeloa lost, but not badly
Alvaro Arbeloa took the Fulham job this summer after Marco Silva left for Benfica, and this was his first match in charge of a senior club side other than Real Madrid. He set Fulham up to have a go, and they did. In the 78th minute Antonee Robinson ran onto a Jorge Cuenca pass, found Sanchez stranded off his line and lifted a half-volley that bounced four yards wide. Having gifted Fulham two goals, Sanchez got away with that one.
Garcia’s goal is the detail Arbeloa will enjoy most. Fulham paid 40 million euros for the 22-year-old, equalling their club record, and Arbeloa knew him from the Real Madrid first team and from coaching Castilla before that. Signing players you already trust looks smart when they score on the opening weekend.
Fulham sit twelfth, Chelsea sixth, and the two men who used to play together for Spain and Real Madrid have both started their Premier League careers with something to work on. Alonso’s version of that came with three points attached.