Fulham beat Brentford in Wembley thriller, return to Premier League

After going down after the terrible last season in the EPL, Fulham had only one goal entering the Championship: to instantly return to the top flight of UK football. Their season in the second level was consistent all over and they held their ground throughout, finally ending up fourth behind Leeds, WBA and Brentford. Making the promotion playoffs was only the first phase though, and the target was still a couple of wins away. Letting the automatic promotion slip to Leeds and WBA was somewhat of a disappointment, but it’s not like Scott Parker’s men hadn’t shown their potential during the season. Fulham won third most games in the league, one more than 2^nd placed WBA for example, and they only lost twice in a row two times the whole season.

Fulham dominated most of their games, but goal-scoring proved somewhat of an Achilles’ heel. Only one player, Serbian center forward Aleksandar Mitrovic surpassed the ten-goal-mark, although he did it with a blast. Mitrovic won the Championship scoring race with 26, just before Brenford’s 25-goal-scorer Ollie Watkins. The second best scorer for Fulham, midfielder Tom Cairney only managed eight goals, so it was all the more worrying when Mitrovic first picked up a suspension and then a nagging thigh injury just before the promotion playoffs. But opportunity and necessity create new heroes. It was a truly unsung hero, who took the reins at the end of the season. Neeskens Kebano, who had not scored a single goal in his 14 games, scored five times in Fulham’s last five games, including the goals that sank Cardiff in the promotion playoffs.

Fulham beat Cardiff on the road 0-2 and went on to lose 1-2 at home, still making it to the Wembley-final against Brentford, who ousted another Welsh side Swansea en route. Brentford and Fulham had gone side-by-side all season, finally finishing up with exact same amount of points, 81. The promotion final was expected to be extremely hard-fought and close game – and that it indeed was.

After going scoreless for 105 minutes, Fulham got the go-ahead goal by another surprising scorer, left back Joe Bryan, who had only scored one goal in his two seasons with the Cottagers. The goal came from a far away free kick, which took Brenford keeper David Raya by surprise and ended up bouncing into the net. Brentford chased the lead with all they got, but it was Fulham who sealed the game on 117^th minute. Who else buy Joe Bryan added the insurance goal from close range after joining a sharp attack and even with Brenford clawing one back on 120+4, it was Fulham’s night to celebrate.

Fulham are ahead of a short and busy summer, as the Premier League season 2020/2021 is set to start already around mid-September. In order to avoid the elevator, Fulham will have to assess at least the scoring issue as Mitrovic is unlikely to carry the team in the top tier as he did in the Championship.