Fulham 3-2 Wolves: Willian’s contentious 94th-minute penalty ends Cottagers’ winless run after visitors had twice equalised with THREE spot-kicks scored

If decisions do even out over the course of a season, Wolves will eventually see a glut of them going in their favour.

Another game and at least one, if not two, debatable penalties given against Gary O’Neil’s side.

And the end result was Wolves feeling a familiar sense of injustice and fury, especially after referee Michael Salisbury admitted to O’Neil that one of the decisions he would have changed if he had been instructed to review it on the pitch side monitor.

Against Manchester United, Luton, Newcastle and Sheffield United, Wolves found themselves on the wrong end of spot-kick calls.

The outcome, as O’Neil pointed out following three of those occasions, was the referee in question ended up being demoted to the Championship for their next game.

There was a long VAR delay for Fulham’s first penalty after Nelson Semedo was adjudged to have fouled Tom Cairney

Wolves boss Gary O’Neil claimed VAR did not help the on-field official Michael Salisbury

It will be all eyes on the next round of referees’ appointments and what happens to Salisbury after he became the latest to risk O’Neil’s wrath.

Firstly he adjudged that Nelson Semedo had fouled Tom Cairney in the box despite the Wolves defender getting the ball first.

The painfully long VAR check said it all – Salisbury’s ruling was far from clear-cut.

Willian scored to put Fulham 2-1 up before Hwang Hee-Chan lashed in a penalty for Wolves over which there was no debate and seemingly earned them a point.

But there was more drama to come when Harry Wilson tumbled to the ground following a soft challenge from Joao Gomes and Salisbury gave a second penalty against Wolves.

This was in injury time and Willian buried it again to continue his 100 per cent Premier League penalty record – seven from seven.

And on this occasion there was no time for another Wolves reply as Fulham celebrated a much-needed first win since the start of October.

They were booed off at half-time but the mood inside Craven Cottage at full-time was far different.

Alex Iwobi opened the scoring for Fulham in the first half after clever play down the left flank

Matheus Cunha grabbed Wolves’ first equaliser thanks to the brilliant play of Jean-Ricner Bellegarde

And certainly in stark contrast to O’Neil, whose frustration with the officials was compounded by the failure to send off Ream for a second yellow or Carlos Vinicius for pushing his head into his captain Max Kilman’s face.

O’Neil, who went in to see Salisbury at full-time after blanking the officials as he walked off, said: ‘Nelson [Semedo] plays the ball and doesn’t touch Cairney. I’ve watched it back with the referee and to be fair he says he thinks they got it wrong and he thinks he should have been sent to the monitor and he would have overturned it.

‘The one on Wilson, we disagree on a little bit. He thinks there’s enough contact there to give a penalty. I think it’s really soft. There’s minimal contact.

‘Four decisions have gone against us and three are mind-boggling. ‘We’ve been here a lot this season. We didn’t deserve that.

‘I don’t think VAR helped the referee tonight. I think he would have done a better job on his own. What’s the point of VAR? We have all these cameras and slo-mos. I don’t think it’s helping the game where it is at the moment.

‘I’m managing a big football club here – the difference you’re making to my reputation, the club’s progression up the league, people’s livelihoods is huge. It can’t be with all the technology, in the best league in the world, it can’t be okay. We should discuss the game really but unfortunately we have to discuss this.’

Fulham head coach Marco Silva insisted: ‘The second [Fulham] one is a clear penalty. The first for us and the one for them were a bit more soft. I hope [VAR] can always make the right decisions because it’s their job.’

Hwang Hee-chan thought he had earned Wolves a point after he converted from 12-yards 

But Willian was able to respond after the contentious penalty award for a foul by Joao Gomez on Harry Wilson

Marco Silva saw his side earn a much-needed victory which lifts them up to 14th, level on points with Wolves

Wolves have found themselves on the wrong end of a series of penalty decisions this season

Fulham’s previous lack of form – four games without a league win – was not obvious in how they began the game.

Raul Jimenez came close to scoring against his old club inside 40 seconds with an attempted back-heel before Alex Iwobi showed him how it was done by impressively adjusting his body and feet to turn Antonee Robinson’s cross through Jose Sa’s legs.

Wolves took a while to warm up but eventually did, hitting the bar through Hwang before Jean-Ricner Bellegarde crossed for Matheus Cunha to head the visitors level.

Fulham could have fallen behind multiple times either side of the break as Wolves created a string of dangerous moments.

But just before the hour came the first penalty for Fulham and Willian.

After that, the one given to Wolves would have improved O’Neil’s mood even if it only made up for the one given against them.

Calvin Bassey’s header went towards rather than away from his own goal.

Hwang was quickest to latch onto the bouncing ball and brought down by Tim Ream before scoring his 10th goal in 20 games for club and country this season.

But the final say ended up being had by Willian following more penalty pain for Wolves and O’Neil.

Silva added: ‘We wanted a reaction from back-to-back defeats and we deserved the three points.’