Everton scored two goals in three minutes to dent Fulham’s European qualification hopes with a 3-1 win at Craven Cottage.
Raul Jimenez opened the scoring for the Cottagers but they failed to capitalise on their lead and Vitalii Mykolenko levelled in first-half stoppage time.
Michael Keane’s header put Everton in front and a mistake from Bernd Leno allowed Beto to add a quickfire third on a day where Brighton and Brentford, who are battling with Fulham for Conference League places, both took three points.
Victory for David Moyes’ men was their first since beating Nottingham Forest 1-0 on April 12th.
Just two weeks after his crucial goal in Fulham’s fightback at Southampton, Emile Smith Rowe looked full of confidence as he set up the home side’s opener after 17 minutes.
He went on a slaloming run down the left and chipped a cross into the penalty area where striker Jimenez rose highest to power a header into the bottom-left corner.
It was all Fulham in the first half but manager Marco Silva, who was serving a touchline ban, would have wanted his men to learn from previous mistakes by converting more chances in order to avoid late heartbreak.
Former Toffees forward Alex Iwobi was at the heart of Fulham’s best chances. His most notable chance in the 39th minute saw him attempt a curling effort from the edge of the area which did not have enough bend and a rooted Jordan Pickford was happy to see it go past a post.
After allowing Jimenez to beat him in the air for the opener, Mykolenko made up for his earlier mishap to level in first-half time added on.
A corner saw the ball roll out to the left-back on the edge of the box, with his first-time shot deflecting off Andreas Pereira and wrong-footing Leno as the ball trickled into
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