Boss Scott Parker said he was relieved to see Fulham end their run of three consecutive 1-1 draws in the Championship with a 2-0 win over Wigan at Craven Cottage.
The Whites once again dominated proceedings against a compact opposition but found it difficult to finish the game off with multiple chances going begging, until captain Tom Cairney found the top corner with another of his curling shots to finally secure three points.
“I think everyone was [relieved], to be fair. I was relieved on the sideline with the coaches, the players certainly were, and the fans as well,” Parker said.
“Over the last few weeks, the results haven’t been there, but performances certainly have. We’ve probably played better over the course of the last few weeks and not gotten the result.
“The result was obviously key tonight and, when the second goal went in, it just took that edginess of us.”
Having conceded late equalisers in their previous matches against West Brom and Sheffield Wednesday, the former Fulham captain was pleased to see his side step up after going ahead and land the killer blow at last.
He added: “We’ve been wounded the last few weeks with the sucker-punches we’ve had.
“It has an effect on the players and the crowd as well at times. But the crowd tonight was superb and the players were as well. It was a good result.
“We’ve faced that a lot this year. Every team that has come here, they have set their stall out, they’ve been very resilient with their work, and it’s been very difficult to break down.
“All week, we’ve worked on trying to move the ball as quick as we have been, while adding that other side to us, which is some more crosses into the box and keeping the tempo high.
“I felt like we did that very well tonight against a good, physical side. When we’ve gone 1-0 up in the last few weeks, we’ve probably sat off it a little bit and given the other team impetus, and ultimately we paid the price on that.
“But tonight I certainly felt that we went up another level after we scored the goal. We raised the tempo, we raised our work rate. And that was pleasing.”
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This post was last modified on 27/09/2019