My hands have just about stopped shaking now, and what a day (and week) this is turning into from a Fulham perspective. Between the win against MK Dons on Saturday, and then heading into tonight with Rotherham and Bristol City winning, MK Dons losing and of course our win tonight- we've taken an absolutely massive step toward our continued survival in the Championship. Being 7 Points clear with 6 Games left, after being 1 Point clear of MK Dons heading into Saturdays game just goes to show the change in fortunes we've had over this week. In short, we're infinitely more secure than we were a week ago- and it's come as a result of us showing the fight to match our undoubted quality on the pitch. Well, that combined with a bit of luck.
I'm loving these Reviews all of a sudden, let's talk about the Goals. In pretty much the only thing that happened in the whole 1st Half, pretty much out of nothing- a Tim Ream long ball was just sent up the pitch, McCormack got the better of the Centre-Back and when Ross McCormack's 1-on-1 with the Goalkeeper 99 times out of 100 he's going to put it into the back of the net. Hopefully we can keep pulling away from the Relegation Zone now and we don't get complacent, because McCormack and our second Goalscorer have been way too good this season to be involved in a Relegation Battle.
The Preston goal was actually really good, it's definitely a lot easier to say that in a game that we've won. Vermijl completely sold Tunnicliffe, then got the better of Parker and Bettinelli couldn't really do much to stop it. With how the 2nd Half was going, I always thought our best bet of scoring would be from either a bit of luck, a Set-Piece or a moment of quality. Dembele's goal ended up being a bit of all three. Pretty much out of nothing, we had a Free-Kick in McCormack range- McCormack bends in an absolutely quality Free-Kick that Lindegaard just about managed to save. Dembele gets the rebound and completely out of nothing we were 2-1 up in a game where we were being completely battered. That's of course how it ended, thank god.
Marcus Bettinelli was good when called upon for the most part today. There was of course the scary moment late-on when Beckford managed to get in the way of his clearance, but apart from that he did quite well today. It's just great to see Bettinelli back in the team, and despite conceding again today- it doesn't look like his injury has done any long-term damage. The sooner he gets his first Clean Sheet back the better.
Fernando Amorebieta's taken a lot of criticism since he's been back, with some of it being justified without a doubt. However, tonight he was absolutely immense first at Centre-Back and then at Left-Back. In-terms of defensive performances, I genuinely can't remember many better over the course of this season- although there's not exactly a wide variety to pick from. Michael Madl delivered the level of performance I think we expect of him now in-terms of an on the ground defender. I thought Jokanovic was smart to take him off the for SEVEN BLOODY MINUTES of Injury Time because as is the case in most matches balls will increasingly get launched into the box the longer they're behind.
I thought Tim Ream had a pretty good First-Half, that was of course unfortunately it for him though with the injury he was presumably getting treated for toward the end of the First-Half. But I do think Ream's done pretty well since he's come back in, and I hope his injury isn't too serious. I thought Ryan Fredericks had a fairly decent game today I thought today. It's not exactly new to say in-terms of pure pace he's probably the best option we've had for a while- but he is. As I said in Saturday's Review, he's a completely different option at Full-Back to Stearman, and it's up to Jokanovic's discretion who he uses when in our 6 remaining matches.
I was surprised to see Scott Parker in the team tonight to be honest, but he was more than worth his place. I said it back in my MK Dons Review, Scott Parker under Jokanovic has turned into our most consistent player- and hopefully if we can stay up it's going to be a lot harder to replace Parker than you'd have thought a few months ago. He was just absolutely immense, once again and there's talks about "Captains Innings"- and Parker's delivered yet another tonight. Another player who I thought was absolutely great tonight was Rohan Ince. You can go back to my Reviews before I got ill and took a break, I was saying pretty much weekly that we needed to be playing a Proper DM to sit in front of, and protect the Back Four. At the time we only really mad Mattila capable of playing the role- but now we've got Ince, and he's actually being played the pieces of the team are 100% falling into place. I don't know if Ince would want to join permanently this Summer given how his first few months here went, but provided we stay up I'd make it an absolute priority- along with signing nearly a whole new defence that we got Ince or a player like him. I thought Tunnicliffe did pretty well today, it's funny how he's ended up being booked for Time-Wasting again tonight in pretty much identical circumstances (dawdling over a throw). It's not a massive thing, but from my point of view he really "gets" the game management side of Football and winding the clock down.
Tom Cairney going off injured was really unfortunate from our point of view, and especially with us playing Ince, Parker and Tunnicliffe we really need Cairney fit to keep the balance of the team. Primarily I hope Cairney's alright of course, but it's definitely going to be interesting to see what Jokanovic does to replace Cairney in the team- and unfortunately we may end having to see McCormack drop deep(er than usual) for a game or two.
As I've already said, McCormack and Dembele from a Goalscoring perspective are just way too good to be where we are in the Table. If we stay up, and despite the gap we've now got- with how our season's gone it's still an "if" it's thanks to Dembele and of course more so McCormack. I think I saw that McCormack's a Goal/Assist away from contributing to 30 Goals this season- and Dembele's a Goal/Assist away from 20. For a team that's basically been fighting Relegation to varying degrees since November, that's ridiculous. Apart from the goals, neither really did much else tonight to be honest though. For me, the First-Half didn't really get going between Preston's two injuries- and then the Second Half was really all Preston- which didn't really give either much of a chance to "shine".
The Stearman Sub for Ream was of course necessary, and I thought Stearman was immense on the whole. It's not been Stearman's season- to put it bluntly- however of the Defenders we've got I'd pick Stearman in a heartbeat in the sort of backs to wall defensive display we had to put in 2nd Half. The O'Hara Sub was of course necessary as well with Cairney's injury, and he did fine on the whole. I wouldn't be looking to renew his Contract unless we went down- but he's still had his moments this season without a doubt he's just tailed off as the season's gone on. As I've already said, I thought Dan Burn coming on for Injury time was smart with his obvious height advantage. I'm interested to see if we renew Burn's Contract this Summer, because Jokanovic obviously saw something in him for him to be starting for as long as he did under him.
Tonight wasn't exactly a world class "Barcelona-esque" performance from us, but that's not what we needed tonight. We needed to battle, and fight for every ball- and for the most part we did. We're finally showing the fight to match the quality we have- and with it being a surprise to nobody- with us doing that we're finally picking up wins. I think with how this season's gone and with MK Dons seemingly struggling if we can pick up 2 more wins- of the 6 games left we'll be safe. The most important thing though is to either maintain or extend our gap on MK Dons now. We can't afford to be sucked back into this Relegation scrap once again- and we can guarantee that by not relying on other teams slipping up. Granted it's definitely helped that MK Dons have lost again tonight, but I want us to stay up under our own steam- and not by having to rely on MK Dons losing the majority of their games left this season.
Hopefully we can keep this good run on Saturday with another battling performance, and another result to match. The Review will of course be up again on Saturday, and hopefully you'll be back again fr that one. Thanks for reading as always, I hope you have a good rest of the week. It's amazing what a couple of wins do for your morale. At this rate we'll win the League.
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