Back to winning ways

After no wins in our previous four games, we got back to winning way with a 2-0 win against a fairly hapless Fulham team, certainly first half.

We scored two excellent goals however, courtesy of young Rio with the opener and then Salah rolled back the years with a fine strike of his own.

Rio brings something to the team that we’ve lacked all season – unpredictability. He wants to isolate his fullback and take him on, he a go left or right and more often than not he gets his shot or cross in. It’s night and day from what we’ve seen from Gakpo all season, where predictably cuts inside and shoots over and over again.

The first half was certainly refreshing anyway before the inevitable drop off in the second half, which thankfully for some poor finishing from Fulham never came back to bite us. Whether it was the lack of fitness we’ve complained about all season, or just a team low on confidence and not sure whether to stick or twist with our two goal lead, I’m not sure but it didn’t matter in the end either way as we saw out a much needed victory.

Much like the Galatasaray game, I don’t want to read too much into this result in isolation because Fulham were awful in the first half and never laid a glove on us but it can only help our battered confidence and if City do us a favour by beating Chelsea today, it puts us in a much better position to go and secure 5th place, especially as it’s highly likely we’ll be out of Europe after Tuesday night.

We limp on to the end of the season then. If we could qualify for next season’s CL it will be something of a salvage job, from what has been a terrible season. Will it be enough to keep Slot in a job? Only time will tell but it’s better than nothing. Walk on!