Ono...oh yes! TRANSFER DEAL MAKEWEIGHT FINALLY SHOWS HIS TRUE VALUE
LEEDS blew a great chance to reclaim top spot as Fulham’s Josh Onomah showed he is far more than a makeweight.
Marcelo Bielsa’s side never fully recovered from an opening seven minutes that saw playmaker Pablo Hernandez limp off and Aleksandar Mitrovic convert a controversially awarded penalty.
That was a 17th goal of the season for the Championship’s top scorer, though Patrick Bamford levelled with his 10th after the break.
However it was a glorious afternoon for former Spurs youth player Onomah, 22, who arrived at Craven Cottage as part of the £25million deal for Ryan Sessegnon.
He smashed in a first goal for the club on 69 minutes to end Leeds’ 11-game unbeaten run and banish the demons of three straight defeats.
Last season Leeds, desperate to get back to the Premier League, were top on Boxing Day but lost four of the next six – eventually finishing third and losing in the play-offs.
Cottages boss Scott Parker said: “I feel such pride. I told the players ‘You’re not getting judged on technique today, there are 20,000 here, they’re judging you on what you are as a man’.
“My eyes didn’t lie to me. I saw a team on the front foot, a team that wanted to make a statement, a team with passion and desire.
“I coached Josh when he was 15 at Spurs. I know the ability he has, I know everything about him. He struggled here at the start. But today I wanted it to stay 2-1 so he had the winning goal.”
Leeds boss Bielsa said: “They scored after one corner and earlier
FULHAM with one penalty. They had just one more chance. We had seven or eight chances to win the match.
“After 23 games our level of play is good. We haven’t played a match where the opponent played better than us.
“We lost Pablo early to a muscle injury, but the warm-up is something we control very well. We take care a lot about the way we act, so I don’t think it was linked to that.”
Asked if last season’s post-christmas collapse was less likely this time, he added: “Last season the physical performances never increased. In this season, they have been good.”
After seven minutes Ben White was harshly adjudged to have pushed Bobby Reid – and Mitrovic’s spot-kick beat Kiko Casilla.
One interested spectator was
LEEDS former Manchester United and Everton boss David Moyes – possibly targeting some of the talent as January signings for any new job.
Soon after the break Moyes saw Leeds draw level. On-loan Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah came on at the break, and when his shot was saved by Marek Rodak the ball fell to Bamford to score.
But Fulham’s winner came after 69 minutes. Mitrovic’s acrobatics from a corner distracted the Leeds defence, and Onomah fired the ball home through a crowd.