Perhaps there will be some debate around Fulham’s equaliser after 82 minutes of this 2-1 derby win for Marco Silva’s team at Stamford Bridge. Certainly Pedro Neto spent a long time prostrate clutching his jaw in performative agony after being caught by Alex Iwobi’s shoulder as the Fulham man skated past a little too easily. Neto might be better served trying to tackle with his feet in future.

There was no debate about the winner, which arrived five minutes into added time, tucked in calmly by the substitute Rodrigo Muniz. And beyond that there was no real question Fulham deserved the victory, reward for an ambitious second-half display that left Silva and his bench writhing in a bobbing huddle on the touchline, and Fulham eighth in the table.

This was a day when Chelsea never seemed to have the deeper gears required to hold on to an early lead granted by Cole Palmer’s sensational first-half goal. “When you cannot win it’s important not to lose. We conceded too many transitions,” Enzo Maresca said. “It became a basketball game and this is not good for us, we need control.”

Defeat leaves Chelsea four points off the top of the table, having played two games more than Liverpool before their late game at home to Leicester. It is hardly a crisis. This was also a first defeat in 10 league games. But that run has never really felt like a title charge, more a title-curious stroll. Maresca keeps saying his team are not ready. On this evidence he has a fair point.

Harry Wilson pops up at the back post to draw Fulham level. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters

For the opening hour this was basically two games of football at once. On one hand the main feature, an energetic Premier League derby, the standard fight over space and small margins. And running alongside that a game of Palmer versus the world, those periodic leaps into hyperspace when Chelsea’s playmaker takes the ball and decides to invent the game from a standing start.

There is still something Christmassy about this model of Chelsea, or at least quite Boxing Day. Here they are surrounded by shiny new plastic stuff, a little dazed and over-gorged, and still working out what to do with four brand new boxed Lego Death Stars, legacy of Todd Boehly’s drunken Santa Claus turn as director of football.

Here Maresca began with a straight, non-inverting back four, with Roméo Lavia absent from midfield, and his replacement Enzo Fernández alternately impressive on the ball and a weak link without it.

Fulham kept their wing-backs deep early on. Adama Traoré started high up on the right in super-short sleeves, biceps rippling like ripe Ibérico hams, always looking to zip infield.

And Fulham were the brighter team early on, Traoré and Iwobi busy in the spaces left by Chelsea’s spells of advanced possession. Which was all fine right up until the moment Palmer decided it was time for something else to happen.

The goal captured exactly why he is so unusual in elite level football. There really was not much on, no pre-scripted path to goal as he picked the ball up 30 yards out, taking a short pass from Levi Colwill and spinning on the half turn. Except, yeah, maybe I’ll just do this.

Three seconds later Palmer had evaded three Fulham players and put the ball in the net. First he veered past Andreas Pereira’s attempted track-back. Then he switched feet mid-stride to chop away from Sasa Lukic. Finally Palmer did not just shoot through Issa Diop’s legs, he placed a beautifully crafted side-foot finish through Diop’s legs, in a way that was so measured, so lovingly precise it was almost sensual, like a fond little squeeze of the thigh.

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Cole Palmer rolls a finish through Issa Diop’s legs after a fine run to add to his collection of beautiful goals. Photograph: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

Palmer took a few moments to amuse himself after that, at one point producing an outrageous little cage-football sideways nudge when he might have shot himself. Steady there. This is not done yet. And steadily Fulham began to create chances, forcing Chelsea into moments of close defending in extremis.

Fulham had more first-half possession and just as many shots. And overall Chelsea just did not have a great deal of slack here, no periods of chill, no sense of how to rest on the ball. At times during an ­increasingly angsty second half the home crowd applauded whenever a Chelsea player put a foot on the ball or passed ­backwards, that 1-0 lead always ­feeling precarious.

Chelsea played on the break for a bit, Pushed back by Fulham’s vigour in midfield. Fernández was slick on the ball but often overrun in the deeper spaces. With 58 minutes gone Traoré ran past him on the left like a man absentmindedly vaulting a traffic cone, leaving Neto to drag him down close to goal in some desperation.

It was a precursor to the equaliser, and Neto’s failure to get close enough to Iwobi, opening a pocket of space near the corner flag. The ball was crossed deep, headed back by Timothy Castagne and then flicked in by Harry Wilson. From there the winning goal may have arrived late; but it never really felt like a surprise.