Looking to secure a fourth consecutive league away win for the first time in exactly a year, Bournemouth had the first two clear chances in this battle between two buoyant sides.
David Brooks was the man tasked with capitalising both times, with a strike from the edge of the box drawing a save from Bernd Leno on 10, before firing narrowly wide of the left post just a few minutes later.
Leno also did himself proud on the half-hour mark too, with Antoine Semenyo finding space inside the box to fire at close range and force a magnificent stop.
Finally, Fulham began to wake up, scoring somewhat against the run of play five minutes before HT, when Raúl Jiménez met an Andreas Pereira corner flush with his head to ripple the net and register his seventh goal of the campaign.
Just before the break, Alex Iwobi might have put the Cottagers in dreamland, but frustratingly fired over the bar.
Coincidentally, Jiménez’s strike continued a trend where every one of his seven goals in 2024/25 had opened the scoring – but with just one of those strikes proving decisive, there was no room for complacency.
And that goal would be shorn of potential ‘decisive’ status just five minutes into the second half, as Bournemouth drew level via Evanilson’s shot into the top-right corner of Leno’s net.
Such was the balance of play, it felt like it would take as much luck as ingenuity for a winner to be crowned, with both goalkeepers having moments in the sun around the three-quarter mark. Bournemouth’s Kepa Arrizabalaga had the best of them, as he prevented a Jiménez header from nestling into the bottom-right corner.
But as fate would have it, the pendulum swung Fulham’s way once more on 72’, when a cross from Antonee Robinson took a deflection that bamboozled Kepa and allowed Harry Wilson to head in at close range.
Fulham clearly hadn’t learned from their earlier lesson though, and Bournemouth would have the last laugh. In the final minute of normal time, Antoine Semenyo found Ouattara inside the box, and he spotted Leno off his line, duly chipping the ball into the net to silence the Cottagers’ faithful.
Despite the disappointing climax, Fulham are now without defeat in four home games and in as many home H2Hs, while Marco Silva’s proud managerial record against the Cherries still stands unbeaten (W3, D3).