Cavaleiro starts rout as Fulham swagger on
FULHAM’S rebuild off the pitch is being matched by the impressive one Scott Parker is carrying out with the team.
From the ruins of Premier League relegation, Parker has constructed a side primed for another Championship promotion push. And his new-look team, playing in a newlook stadium with the Riverside Stand stripped of seats and ready for redevelopment, signalled their intent with a one-sided win.
One of the lessons Fulham would have learned from lastast season and their £100million-n-plus summer spree is the danger of gambling on players who don’t know what they aree getting into.
Parker’s approach this year has been to fill his squad with players who possess Championship and promotion-winning know-how.
Three of them — twogoal and Ivan Cavaleiro and fellow loanee Anthony Knockaert, plus retained talisman talis Aleksandar Mitrovic — were the scorers as Fulham’s season gained further momentum with a third successive win.
Parker said: ‘The most pleasing thing as a coach is, after all the work of the last 10 weeks, seeing your team execute. Credit to the owner, Tony Khan, who identified the mistakes we made last year in terms of recruitment. We’ve signed players and we know what we’re getting. They’ve fitted in really well.’
Millwall boss Neil Harris said: ‘Fulham were magnificent. Their fans will be thinking, “What are we doing in this division? We should be in the Premier League”.’ Fulham have their passing swagger back after an ill-fated top-flight campaign and some of their play and dominance brought back memories of the slick football they played to win promotion under Slavisa Jokanovic. Millwall only managed to keep Fulham at bay for 15 minutes and can’t say they were not warned when the opener came. On Friday, Cavaleiro had cut in from the left to bend Fulham’s winner against Huddersfield into the top corner and last night Millwall allowed him to repeat it. Fulham were soon playing ‘ ole’ football, which was epitomised by the 26- pass move involving every Fulham player that ended with Knockaert heading in the second. Millwall’s comeback hopes were killed off in the 56th minute when Mitrovic rammed in his third goal in three games from the spot after being brought down by Bartosz Bialkowski. Cavaleiro then raced on to a pass from Tom Cairney, who also set up the opener, and rounded Bialkowski to score his second and give Fulham their biggest win over their London rivals.