Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, apparently.
Fulham, then, might well be a couple of pork pies short of a picnic. They’re also only three points off fourth place, so maybe we should all go a little crazy sometimes?
Marco Silva’s attack-minded side, taking on a stubborn, solid and regimented Brentford team who, one goal ahead and fighting for their first away victory of the season, had little intention of venturing over the halfway line, decided their best route to goal was via a cross. So they did it a lot.
Andreas Pereira crossed the ball eight times, Antonee Robinson did it seven times, as did Reiss Nelson. Of the 16 Fulham players who played, only four didn’t attempt a cross into the box and one of those was goalkeeper Bernd Leno.
When they won the ball, they crossed it into the box. If they were in doubt as to what to do, they thought about it, then crossed. If they had very big doubts, they consulted a team-mate, then crossed.
This was the 100th match of the 2024-25 Premier League season and no side has produced more crosses (including corners) in a match then Fulham did here. There were 43 in total, 31 coming from open play. Only Brighton (against Nottingham Forest) can match that.
And Brentford, with their gigantic centre-backs, absolutely bloody loved it. Ethan Pinnock (6ft 4in) produced 10 clearances and Nathan Collins (6ft 4in) six. It was like they were reaching for cereal on the top shelf of a supermarket aisle. Hard for little old ladies, easy for tall defenders.
Full-backs Mads Roerslev (6ft) and Sepp van den Berg (6ft 4in) didn’t really mind it either, with six and five clearances respectively. Every action has a reaction. Every Fulham cross had a Brentford clearance.
“I still think the defending was fantastic in many ways,” defeated Brentford manager Thomas Frank said.
“The blocks were good, the principles, the characters, the mentality, the effort…unbelievable. We dealt with everything…they needed a bit of magic from (Harry) Wilson.”
Fulham versus Brentford, a fixture historically played in English football’s lower leagues (the equivalent of watching Peterborough United versus Stevenage in the top flight in 20 years time) didn’t promise much on a chilly Monday night in November.
It delivered a dramatic comeback victory, the latest of late drama, a “1 in 100” goal from Wilson (doesn’t sound as good as one in a million but that’s how Frank described it, so let’s bow to the professional), hysterical scenes of celebration and, for the nerdy among you, statistical intrigue.
Substitute Wilson netted after 91 minutes and 27 seconds, then again on 96 minutes and 46 seconds. The second goal was literally only possible because of the first, with six minutes added on but then a few more seconds allowed because of the time taken to restart the match.
It was Fulham’s latest ever Premier League winner, with their 26th shot of the match (their highest tally since 2014), and Wilson is only the sixth player to score a stoppage-time equaliser and a winner in the same Premier League game.
Oh, and Brentford are the first side in the history of the Premier League to lose four consecutive away games in which they have scored the first goal.
So disinterested were some Fulham fans with the endless crossing, that they started to leave in the 80th minute. “We can see you sneaking out,” they sang in the away end, while watching the second half through binoculars to see the action exclusively being played at the other end of the pitch.
It was a comeback unlikely for several reasons, not least the time left on the clock, but also because of the crosses. Of Fulham’s first 27 crosses, only three had reached a team-mate.
Adama Traore’s shorn cross for Wilson’s equaliser, let’s face it, was probably not intended to lead to a physics-defying flick which looped over Mark Flekken into the far corner.
Robinson’s clipped cross behind Wilson probably wasn’t intended to lead to a stunning diving header which wrong-footed Flekken and generated one of the best moments of the league season so far.
Fulham head coach Silva didn’t mind how the goals came. “I told them (at half-time), it was going to be tough for (Brentford) to keep blocking everything,” he said.
Wilson normally plays on the right for Fulham but Silva moved him inside so he would arrive in pockets of space to get on the end of all the crosses.
“In most of the games, we’ve been the best team on the pitch, creating chances, but the reality is we didn’t get the points we deserve,” he continued. “Tonight was more or less the same story. From the first minute, the team on the front foot was Fulham.”
Silva is asked, with his team four points off third place, what is possible for Fulham to achieve this season.
“What’s possible is to work hard,” he replies. Maybe don’t go dreaming about what the future holds just yet, Fulham fans. Unless those dreams are about crosses.
(Top photo: Clive Rose/Getty Images)
