GUGLIELMO VICARIO lost his head and Tottenham lost yet another game at home.
Now calls are even emerging from the fanbase for Thomas Frank to lose his job less than six months into his Spurs tenure.
Vicario’s horrendous gaffe on six minutes to keep the ball in play rather than whack it out led to Harry Wilson’s laser-like strike – which was ultimately the Fulham match winner.
It had added to Kenny Tete’s deflected opener two minutes in and though Spurs rallied in the second half, scoring through Mohammed Kudus’s cracker, it was not enough.
Boos rang out at full-time after a third defeat in a week, and a fourth at home already this season in the Premier League.
Remarkably, Europa League winners Spurs have only won THREE times in the league at home in 2025.
And the last of those came on the opening day of the season against Burnley, when things looked so optimistic for Frank after leaving Brentford.
The Dane will hope it is just early teething problems in his tenure but many fans seem to have had it to the back teeth of his football already.
It may seem remarkably soon to those who do not follow Spurs regularly, but he looks in a battle to win over the doubters, even at this early stage.
And the fact that his old side – whom he faces next week – are a point above them in the league is not helping matters either.
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Spurs had already shipped nine goals this week when losing 4-1 at arch-rivals Arsenal on Sunday and 5-3 at Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday, though that latter performance at least had more attacking intent.
Stand-in captain Micky van de Ven set the tone for a shambolic first half with an early pass which he skewed horribly out of play.
Spurs’ nightmare start began just four minutes in when a poor Kevin Danso header allowed Fulham to pick up the ball and work it left to Samuel Chukwueze.
The AC Milan loanee then danced into the box and played a ball across which came to Tete, whose first-time shot took a wicked deflection off Destiny Udogie and flew into the net.
At that point, Frank needed his time to take a breath and reset.
Yet within two minutes, Vicario, an Italy international and their second eldest player in the team, committed an error a primary school goalkeeper would be embarrassed to make.
The 29-year-old came haring out of his goal to intercept the ball as Raul Jimenez burst past the backline.
But instead of smashing the ball out of play when he took possession of it, criminally he played it down the line, finding a grateful Josh King who laid it to Wilson.
The Welshman, still brimming with confidence after his hat-trick against North Macedonia 12 days ago, needed no invitation to fire a super shot straight into the open net from out wide.
Spurs fans were furious, booing Vicario the next few times he had the ball at his feet.
Frank looked helpless, no doubt disbelieving what he had just witnessed.
His team seemed petrified of going further behind, rather than focused on finding a way back into the game.
Chukwueze almost made it 3-0 just five minutes later, curling a shot that hit the post after Spurs half-cleared a corner.
The Nigerian had been rewarded for his game-changing cameo against Sunderland last week with a start here, and he was ripping Spurs to shreds.
Tottenham’s formation was not helping, with the narrow 4-4-2 affording Chukwueze plenty of space to go up against the lacklustre Pedro Porro.
It was only an inspired tackle from Van de Ven that prevented Chukwueze from tapping home after he burst past Porro and rounded Vicario.
Spurs’ stopper had suffered the humiliation moments earlier of ironic cheers from the stands when he smashed a clearance into Row Z.
Van de Ven was starting to get wound up and raged at Joachim Andersen when the Cottagers skipper crumpled in a heap following the Dutchman’s robust challenge in the air.
Luckily for Spurs, Van de Ven kept his head when stooping to a Chukwueze cross and flicked it away, just as Jimenez was preparing to nod it in.
Former Spurs chief David Pleat, promoting his new book, was interviewed during half-time alongside his 49-goal striker Clive Allen from the 1987 season at half-time.
The 80-year-old savagely quipped: “Imagine 49 goals now. We’re just hoping to get a shot on target.”
Yet, amazingly, Frank made no changes at the break whatsoever – not even to his formation.
He presumably had given his players ten minutes to make amends for the shocking first half, underlined by the fact he had three subs waiting to come on by 55 minutes.
But before the 51-year-old Frank could make that treble change, his side did grab one back and in spectacular fashion.
Lucas Bergvall clipped a clever ball round the corner for Kudus, who took a touch and belted the ball into the top corner from an acute angle.
That was just the shot in the arm – plus the one on target Pleat had asked for – and now it was a matter of whether back-tracking Fulham could weather their storm or not.
They did and, damningly for a team that had just one point away from home before this game, looked comfortable.
Marco Silva, passed over for Frank in the summer for the Spurs job, gave his opposite number a hug at full-time.
There could be a vacancy in the manager’s dugout here soon enough again for the Portuguese to apply for, if things do not improve soon.
