Five things we learned from Fulham's 3-0 win over AFC Wimbledon

Fulham secured their place in the third round of the Carabao Cup with a resounding 3-0 victory over AFC Wimbledon at Craven Cottage.

After a 3-2 defeat to Chelsea on Monday night in their Premier League opener, Alvaro Arbeloa was hoping to kickstart his Fulham regime in style.

And that was exactly what happened, with goals from Emile Smith Rowe and then Rodrigo Muniz putting the Cottagers into a commanding 2-0 lead at half-time.

And the game was wrapped up in style with a sensational goal from Gonzalo Garcia, who picked up the ball from deep, beat his man, rounded the keeper and then brilliantly tapped it into the back of the net.

It was the ideal evening for Alvaro Arbeloa, whose Fulham side will now take on West Ham at the London Stadium in the third round.

But from a night of this magnitude, there is of course more than meets the eye and we take you through five things we learned from a successful night at Craven Cottage.

When looking at the starting XI, I did not think the first point of the five things we learned would stem back to Gonzalo Garcia, and yet here we are.

The Spaniard came on in the 73rd minute, with the game already pretty comfortable for Fulham, who were leading 2-0 at the time.

But, Garcia showed not just his incredible ability with his goal, but also the desire to score goals that will have delighted both the Fulham fans and Arbeloa himself.

Two goals in his first two games for the club is some way to start and he will hope to continue that at the Stadium of Light on Sunday.

It was a very cool sub-plot to this match, but Fulham’s Ryan Sessegnon was up against former Cottager and twin Steven Sessegnon.

It is fair to say it was the current Fulham player who very much got the better of his brother on Thursday night, with the left back assisting Smith Rowe’s goal and also keeping a clean sheet on the way to advancing into the Third Round of the Carabao Cup.

We have spoken a lot about full backs as they became more and more prevalent to Arbeloa’s system in pre-season and that noise is only going to continue.

Sessegnon assisted the first goal, Kenny Tete the second, and we saw goal involvements from full-backs throughout pre-season too.

At this point, Garcia and Muniz are going to be the focal points of the attack, with the full-backs providing the width.

As a result, it looks as though Sessegnon, Tete, Antonee Robinson and Timothy Castagne are almost going to be attackers this season for Fulham – watch that space.

After 376 days, Rodrigo Muniz finally ended his drought in front of goal in a competitive game for Fulham.

His last goal came in a 1-1 draw against Brighton on the first game of the 2025/26 season and some very challenging times followed for the Brazilian.

Now he has that goal, and some genuine long-term competition in Garcia and Fulham will hope they have two centre forwards set to battle it out.

It may have been against League One opposition, but 79% possession, a 3-0 win, 29 shots and a clean sheet – it doesn’t get much more dominant than that.

And, after their defence was caught out a few times against Chelsea on Monday night, it was a sign that the system can work – it just needs time.

Sunderland and Crystal Palace are much more accurate litmus tests for it in all reality, but after a showing like this, there can surely be no doubt that the system can work if given time to do so.