They dominated all but the first few minutes and a left a lacklustre Stoke still sweating on reaching the magic 40-point mark.
And it was an ill wind that blew Fulham some good when they lost Bobby Zamora to injury after just 20 minutes.
Less than 10 minutes later his replacement, Erik Nevland, swept Fulham into the lead with a goal the scorer set up himself.
A Stoke move broke down outside the Whites penalty area and Nevland stumbled over a Greg Whelan challenge before striding on to feed Andy Johnson outside him on the right.
The £12million forward barely looked up before pulling the ball back ever so slightly behind the retreating Stoke defenders for Nevland to side-foot under the despairing dive of Thomas Sorensen.
It seemed to get worse for the Londoners when Johnson himself limped off just five minutes later.
But if anything, Fulham then wasted the best chances of the half to put daylight between themselves and a Stoke side that started brightly and then faded big time.
A clever free-kick taken just outside the City box saw Danny Murphy dummy a pass to his left and when Paul Konchesky fired low, any half-decent connection from Dickson Etuhu would have doubled Fulham's luck.
Instead, the tall midfielder stubbed his toe into the turf and sent the ball over from point blank range.
Konchesky then got beyond the Stoke backline courtesy of a clever chip from sub Diomansy Kamara but blasted over from barely 10 yards.
Deep into first-half stoppage time, Abdoulaye Faye's back pass was well short of a comfortable kick out for Sorensen.
Nevland chased down the loose pass and might consider himself unlucky when he all got for a 50/50 challenge was a yellow card as he clattered into ball and Sorensen.
It could have been much different had Rory Delap steadied himself barely two minutes after the start.
As ever, the Stoke midfielder launched a prodigious throw into the box and then caught up with it as the ball was only half-cleared.
Unmarked from 18 yards, he smashed a ball closer to the back of the stand than the net.
Liam Lawrence was closer with a fizzing right-foot effort from 25 yards but Mark Schwarzer was still able to watch the ball fly wide of his right upright.
Ryan Shawcross' downward header that bounced over was the best they had to show for an incident-free second period that leaves the Londoners checking to see if their passports are up to date.