Fulham narrowly escape Swansea

Fulham’s form has taken a downturn after putting up a great challenge for the top two places in the English Championship.

They had not won in three games, losing their momentum against Leeds running away in the second place. The games Fulham has not managed to win have all had the same characteristics – the game is under control but failure to score causes problems and then the opponent strikes after frustration sets in. The similar setting was ahead on Wednesday, when ninth placed Swansea visited Craven Cottage. Fulham held the ball, got into positions but were unable to put the ball past Frederick Woodman between the Swansea’s pipes. The sigh of relief from Fulham faithful was heard as far as Buckingham when Alexandar Mitrovic finally sealed the three points in the closing minutes of the game.

The season so far has been a success for Scott Parkers men and they are comfortably in the seat to make it to the promotion playoffs. Hunting down the top two seeding and the automatic promotion has been a struggle though, even with Leeds squandering plenty of points and offering Fulham an opportunity. Now Leeds is on a roll and Fulham have had their struggles, but a bounce-back win from Swansea should boost the confidence going to the final third of the season.

Fulham was yet again in control from the start to the finish against Swansea, but the goals are hard to come by. Fulham has scored 49 goals this season, which puts them tied at fourth in goals scored, which is not bad. But in games they’ve utterly dominated, the scoring seems more difficult – all due respect to well defending opponents. Also, Alexandar Mitrovic has now scored league leading 23 of Fulham’s 49 goals, while the second best scorer in the team, Tom Cairney has seven to his name. The Serbian craves for support in scoring as Fulham seem unable to win if he is not on the score-sheet.

Against Swansea it was all deadlocked until the closing minutes, despite a couple of penalty claims by the visitors earlier on. The Swansea side couldn’t believe it when on the 88th minute the penalty was awarded to the home team. However, Mitrovic was denied by brilliant Woodman, who kept the score even heading to additional time. Only some 30 seconds remained in the play clock, as Mitrovic rose above everyone else and nodded in a cross sent by Aboubakar Kamara to save Fulham from yet another failure.