Fulham enjoy a fab four
Now Newcastle on brink...
FULHAM’S landslide win — their 10th in 15 matches — has opened the door for those other black and whites to seal an immediate return to the Premier League.
Victory for Newcastle over Preston tomorrow will secure the second automatic promotion place and leave just the play-off picture to be completed at the top end of the Championship.
Huddersfield, by virtue of their game in hand, are the only team able to overhaul Rafa Benitez’s side, although their manager David Wagner has played down such chances all season.
And Wagner was not about to change his tune after freescoring Fulham struck four first-half goals to take their season’s tally to 82.
‘This club has been waiting 45 years for the kind of situation that we have at the minute: the chance to secure a play-off spot to play for the chance to come to the Premier League,’ Wagner said.
‘Anything else was never in my mind. What this team has shown over the whole season of 43 games has been total consistency. I think we were only one day not in the top six.’
In contrast, Fulham have been in such a lofty position less than a week. Although on t his showing, Slavisa Jokanovic’s team are the ones to avoid when it comes to the two-legged play-offs.
Undeterred by the early concession of a fourthminute penalty, won and dispatched successfully by Huddersfield left-back Chris Lowe, Fulham turned the game on its head with their high-intensity pressing and slick passing.
Their adventure was typified in the 16th minute, when their own left- back Scott Malone anticipated a break in the area and rifled in the equaliser from an acute angle. Just four minutes later, Floyd Ayite made up for his error in the other penalty area by winning the spot-kick that Tom Cairney converted.
That briefly made Cairney Fulham’s top scorer but the excellent Stefan Johansen pulled up alongside him with a double before the break, driving in after Ryan Sessegnon’s effort was blocked and then dispossessing Jonathan Hogg deep in Huddersfield territory to make it 4-1.
Fulham hold a three-point advantage, and a superior goal difference, over seventh-placed Leeds, with fixtures against Brentford and Sheffield Wednesday to come.
But Jokanovic warned: ‘So far, we have done nothing.
‘We must refresh our minds and rest our bodies to be ready for next Saturday.’