DEADLY AK-47 GUNS DOWN TIMID TIGERS
They call him AK-47 because of his shirt number and now Hull know why after Aboubakar Kamara came off the bench to shoot them down with a second-half double.
Hull had looked in complete control thanks to two first-half goals from Jarrod Bowen and Nouha Dicko for Nigel Adkins’ side, but super-sub Kamara’s brace earned Fulham a deserved point.
The result extends Fulham’s unbeaten run to three games but the result left Tigers manager Adkins frustrated that his side threw the lead away.
He said: “We started the second half well, but lo and behold one of our defenders has given a stupid penalty away, and he’s well aware of that, but that uncertainty creeps in around the place.
“McGregor hasn’t had that many saves to make, but unfortunately at the very, very end their player has passed one in and that’s disappointing for us. But we’ve done many, many good things today and we go again in 48 hours.”
The first half-an-hour of the match was a quiet one, long-range efforts the best either side could muster.
But the game to life just after a Hull corner found Bowen, via the heads of Fikayo Tomori and Jackson Irvine, leaving Bowen to smash home from close range.
It was Hull’s first goal in four games and as soon as it was one, it was two. Jon Toral’s through ball found Dicko, the forward doing the rest with a rasping left-footed finish into the roof of the net.
Fulham manager Slavisa Jokanovic had seen enough and made a double substitution five minutes before the break, Kamara and Neeskens Kebano introduced in place of Floyd Ayite and Sheyi Ojo.
Immediately after the break the changes had the desired effect, with a little help from their hosts.
Defender Michael Hector fouled Kamara inside the box and the forward picked himself up to send his penalty into the top corner.
The tide turned as Fulham started to take control of the game, with Kebano and Kamara running the show up front, but Jokanovic had no regrets about not starting the pair.
“We didn’t start the game well, it was urgent to make those changes, I tried to find some shock reaction,” he said. “Both the players played very well in the last few games, but if there is an opportunity to change the team I do it.
“The players who came on gave us new energy and scored two important goals for us. We just didn’t find enough energy early in the game, we didn’t control the ball and played slowly. It was a strange first 45 minutes for us and we seemed to find more energy towards the end of the game.”
Kebano nearly levelled the game himself, chipping an effort over the bar before Kamara fired an effort over from inside the box.
Bowen could have wrapped it up for Hull, a deflected effort finding the winger unmarked inside the box, but his snatched effort was straight at Marcus Bettinelli in goal.
The killer blow came with just five minutes remaining, late substitute Lucas Piazon finding Kamara inside the box, the forward cleverly rolling the ball into the bottom corner in almost nonchalant fashion to steal a point for the Cottagers, leaving Adkins with just one win from five.
“We were outstanding in the first half against a very good side,” he said. “We scored two very good goals, we pressed well as a team to win the ball back and we’ve been working on that.”