Jack and Loz at the Cottage - Blog 199

Date: 20th November 2021

Opposition: Barnsley

Score: 4-1

Fulham goal scorers: 🔥, Carvalho, Kebano, Wilson

Weather: pleasant

Atmosphere: good

MOTM: from impact sub to essential starter, Neeskens Kebano has come of age under the guidance of Marco Silva and, perhaps more crucially, Luis Boa Morte. In the thick of it all afternoon, Neeskens showed his energy and strength in his relentless attacking play and his agility and skill in his decisive goal. All in all, this was a sensational performance from Neeskens who is just getting better and better

Lunch: the Blue Boat

Dinner: Caravan in Exmouth Market

The curse of the international break came upon us once again last weekend. This time, the dearth of domestic action wasn’t too painful for Fulham fans as we are all Serbian now and got to watch our favourite striker fire our adopted nation into the World Cup finals.

On Saturday, the players were back from their travels and we were back at the Cottage torn between the justified expectation of another Fulham goal fest and the equally justified expectation of falling foul of a bogey team yet again.

Barnsley are not particularly good at Championship football so to make things fairer Fulham started the game by playing ourselves as well as the opposition. Harrison Reed led on this controversial initiative and was supported in his endeavours by several teammates, including Tom Cairney. The team looked rusty and with Barnsley making up for in enthusiasm what they lacked in finesse the game was well balanced for a while with Hector hitting the inside of the post at one end and Marek Rodak having to make a terrific reaction save from a Harrison assisted shot at the other.

Fortunately, this seemed to be the wake-up call Fulham needed and slowly but surely, we took the control of the match.

The problem with being Europe’s best goal scorer is that people expect you to score all the time. After 20 minutes had passed without a Mitro Goal fans were beginning to feel short-changed. But we needn’t have worried, he was just biding his time. The fuse had been lit, the flames were flickering and Barnsley were about to get the same treatment as Portugal. And Peterborough. And Blackburn. And West Brom. And Forest. And Cardiff. And QPR. And The List Goes On.

We have watched Mitro for 5 years and we have never seen him so fit, so sharp or so focused. “Mitro’s on fire” has become a throwaway line; a cliche. But how else can you describe a man who has outscored 45 teams out of the 92 in the Football League? Who is on course to break the Championship goals scored record by an enormous margin and set a new target which is unlikely to ever be beaten? Mitro is at the peak of his fitness and somewhere near the top of his game. After a season in the wilderness he is the Club’s talisman and the Manager’s main man. After acknowledging the cheers of the crowd for his goal, he looked across at Marco Silva who gave him a private round of applause.

“Everyone in Serbia knows what Fulham means to me,” Mitro said this week and our hearts overflowed. We are astonishingly lucky not just to have this man at our Club but for him to be so committed to our success. His consistency in scoring goals is unbelievable; the work he puts in for his team mates is laudable. This season has taken on a magical quality because of what we are watching Mitro achieve. But thoughts are turning to next season already and to Mitro’s next task - to prove the doubters and the outsiders wrong. To prove he is good enough for the Premier League.

Mitro was involved in both Carvalho’s superb goal in the first half and his spectacular miss in the second. Both were examples of Mitro’s awareness and unselfishness. One showed Fabio’s potential, the other his inexperience. His place in the starting line-up shows his future at Fulham may be in less doubt than we thought. Or just that Seri had a long flight back from Africa this week.

The fourth goal was scored by Harry Wilson, a closer runner up (again) to Neeskens in the MOTM stakes. Also like Neeskens, Harry was fully immersed in all the attacking play, using his pace and trickery to confound the Barnsley defenders. His signature move has become a sprint to the by-line and a reverse sweep of the ball back into the box just before it runs out of play. This is both thrilling to watch and a nightmare to defend against.

Harry’s goal was assisted by Seri who has now won Pass of the Season twice over (the other one was to Bobby when he scored against QPR). We would have brought Mika on for the struggling Harrison earlier but we liked the way he and Onomah steadied the midfield without depriving the team of fire power.

Amongst all this praise we have, unfortunately, to mention the defence and the return of the Triangulo do Ruina. It’s hard to know what Ream and Co were thinking when watching the replay, it was even harder when the travesty was actually happening. Suffice to say, a momentarily loss of reason is never a good thing and Barnsley deserved the goal for their perseverance anyway. Rodak made his feelings clear by his disgruntled hoof of the ball back to the centre spot and Marco no doubt made his feelings clear in the dressing room. Of course, it doesn’t matter much but it’s a blot on the defence’s copybook and is a reminder that we’re not quite as dominant as we like to think.

On a positive note, Ream and Hector have clearly been practising their long diagonal passes because their length, accuracy and regularity were outstanding. Overall, this was another entertaining, easy victory. Four goals scored by four different men belies the myth that we’re a one man team and gives us confidence that sustaining our position should be possible if Mitro is overtaken by injury or, more likely, dissent. But in the meantime, our fiery hero and his incredible statistics go marching on.

Random musings:

- the ref had a really good game, letting it flow and keeping his cards in his pocket

- Ream’s diving cushioned header back to Rodak was a thing of beauty

- less so was Fab’s celebration in front of the Barnsley fans whose team are 23rd in the league and who had travelled 200 miles on Saturday. We’ll put that down to his inexperience too

- we liked the Silva coloured hoodie but maybe it would be more appropriate for a day off?

- it was great to see some Serbian flags in the crowd, reinforcing the fact that SW6 is now a suburb of Belgrade

- Mitro certainly saw and appreciated them…..

- …….and he removed his shirt.

For the first time this season, fans were singing “the Whites are going up” and, with West Brom falling away, it is beginning to feel like a realistic proposition. And yet still, there is a sense that these easy wins aren’t a true test of the team, that we’re not seeing what they’re really capable of. Because maybe this is only the warm-up; maybe we only get to see them reach their potential in what happens next.