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Wycombe Wanderers (1) 1 v Fulham (0) 1
Fulham win 5-4 on penalties
By Kaz Mochlinski at Adams Park
Football League Cup
Fourth Round
Fulham needed a piece of magic from Josh King and a penalty shoot-out to reach the League Cup quarter-finals as they eventually got past a spirited challenge from Wycombe Wanderers at Adams Park.
King memorably scored the first goal of his career, conjuring up the equaliser in Fulham’s second half comeback to take the tie to penalties after trailing their lower league opponents at half-time.
The Cottagers’ goalkeeper in the Carabao-sponsored competition, Benjamin Lecomte, was the hero in the dramatic shoot-out, saving three spot-kicks, before Issa Diop blasted in the winning penalty.
It completed the capital club’s recovery after going behind from the first meaningful attack of the game, with the anguish being increased as the scorer was a former Fulham player, Cauley Woodrow.
Woodrow was once a little bit like King is now as a prospect. Both made their Whites debuts while still teenagers. Although, in contrast to Josh, who has been at Fulham since the age of eight, Cauley joined the academy as a 16-year-old.
Having initially left Luton Town to come to Fulham, Woodrow is currently on a season-long loan from the Hatters at Wycombe. The move was made worthwhile for Wanderers by one moment in this match on its own.
The Chairboys played the ball from the right across their midfield to Woodrow in the inside-left position. Over 20 yards out from goal, he shimmied very neatly around the man marking him to make space for a right-footed low shot that proved unstoppable.
The opposition player Woodrow left standing to score the opening goal was King, who, instead of letting his head drop from the disappointment, began working unceasingly to try and bring his team back level.
After Woodrow gave Wycombe the lead, it was perhaps fitting that King hit Fulham’s equaliser. And there was also symmetry in the timing of the goals, one each in the first few minutes of either half.
While Woodrow took three and a half minutes from the kick-off, King required only 140 seconds following the interval to strike, getting first to Kevin’s corner from the left swung in right-footed towards the near post.
In amidst a crowd of closely-marking defenders, and with his back to the goal, King produced a one-touch flick with his right foot which directed the ball behind him and beyond the Wycombe keeper, Will Norris.
Rather than even a simple backheel, the connection was more with the sole of his boot, and it was perfect. Improvised, inspired, and outrageously skillful. Most players might not have attempted it, so to score that way was seriously special.
In contrast to Woodrow, who is now 30 years old, King is still only 18 and wildly celebrated the added significance of his first ever goal in senior professional football with the Fulham fans in the away stand at the Hillbottom Road End of Adams Park.
The spectacular manner of the finish will maybe make up to some extent for having had a previous goal at Chelsea a couple of months ago infamously disallowed by a terrible VAR mistake, acknowledged as probably the worst of the season.
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“It took a remarkable bit of skill to score against us tonight” acknowledged the Wycombe manager, Michael Duff, ruefully, on reflection. “But, from a defensive point of view, it was a poor goal for us to concede.
“We should be set up to stop set-pieces. And yet at a corner we failed to prevent a player who is probably the smallest on the pitch from scoring. It is very frustrating, as otherwise I thought that we made it a very good cup tie.”
Wycombe were actually the team in better form recently, heading in to a meeting of the 17th-placed clubs in League One and the Premier League respectively, both precariously positioned just three points above the relegation zone.
Whereas Wanderers had improved substantially since Duff’s appointment in mid-September, and were undefeated in their last five games, Fulham arrived at Adams Park on a four-match losing streak.
Exacerbated and explained by an extensive injury list, the Cottagers had been beaten in every encounter in the league since progressing through the previous round of the Carabao Cup a month ago.
Worryingly in particular, away from Craven Cottage, they had not won a game all season, suffering defeats on their last four trips in succession. So Marco Silva very much wanted at Wycombe to end that sequence.
Despite making seven changes to his starting XI, the Fulham head coach sent out a relatively strong line-up, with every player in the side, apart from Lecomte, having had reasonably regular experience in the Premier League, at least as replacements.
Nevertheless, three more core first-teamers had to be added in from the substitutes’ bench in the second half, with Ryan Sessegnon, Alex Iwobi and Saša Lukić being brought on in Fulham’s pursuit of an elusive victory.
And in most respects it was an encouraging performance from the Londoners after the shock of letting in the early goal. Subsequently, they stopped Wycombe from having any further attempts on target for the rest of the match.
With an overwhelming eventual advantage in possession of 74.2% versus the third-tier side’s 25.8%, Fulham kept creating chances, through Tom Cairney and King down the middle, plus the two wingers, Kevin on the left and Adama Traoré on the right.
Both of them provided first half crosses for Raúl Jiménez headers which were well saved by Norris. After half-time the home goalkeeper had to be equally agile to tip over rising shots from Cairney and Kevin, the latter trying to finish a fast break down the left.
When Iwobi took over from Cairney, he twice cut open the Wycombe back line from an inside-left position with precise passes: for Kevin, again coming off the left for a right-foot drive, blocked by Norris’s leg; then for King to spin and shoot wide across goal.
Fulham continued to persevere deep into stoppage time, with Traoré getting in a dangerous right wing cross which Norris could only punch partially away, to Kevin, whose snap shot was cleared off the line by Anders Hagelskjær.
Wycombe could be proud of their rearguard efforts against a top flight team, in just the club’s second ever appearance in the fourth round of the League Cup, 19 seasons after the one previous occasion when they reached the last 16.
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Coincidentally, Wanderers met the Whites in the second round back then, and managed to beat them, before extending the run into the semi-finals, where they faced Fulham’s SW6 neighbours, Chelsea.
By another quirk, the result of the battle against the Blues at Adams Park in January 2007 after 90 minutes was also 1-1. The winners that time were determined by the second leg score at Stamford Bridge, a comprehensive 4-0 in favour of Chelsea.
Now, in a straight knock-out, with no extra-time, the Wycombe v Fulham one-all draw meant that the tie would be decided by penalties. And the home side got the added benefit of the spot-kicks being taken in front of their supporters at the Valley End.
It lifted their backing to a level that had been missing for most of the evening from a crowd which was not a sell-out. Flags and mobile phone lights were brought out and waved to try to put off the Fulham penalty-takers.
None of the noise affected Lecomte, who stopped the opening kick from Ewan Henderson and then later attempts in sudden-death by Fred Onyedinma and Donnell McNeilly to edge the visitors to victory.
However, the successful strikes of Lukić, Traoré, Kevin and Iwobi were not followed up by Sessegnon when he had the chance to finish it, and Jonah Kusi-Asare agonisingly also had his effort saved to somewhat spoil his debut in English football.
The Swedish 18-year-old, who is on loan from Bayern Munich, had replaced the injured Raúl Jiménez in the closing stages, and, in the absence of Fulham’s main striker, it required Diop to step up and win the penalty shoot-out 5-4.
“We wanted to be in the next round. We are going to be there,” said Silva afterwards. “Of course, our obligation was to be in the next round. To be honest, I think throughout the game we did enough.
“We knew we had to be positive and keep positivity around ourselves because these types of things happen, where the first shot on target was a goal. That’s football.
“And I told the players at half-time that sometimes things come against us and we have to face it in the best way we can.”
Plus he reiterated: “That’s football. When you create like we created in the second half, we have to put the ball in the back of the net. We have to be clinical, we have to be ruthless.”
Silva was exceptionally open and insightful when he admitted “confidence is not something that you can buy anywhere”. He will hope that a chilly Tuesday night in Wycombe can help to restore some self-belief in his squad.
“The results haven’t been good enough for us, even in difficult circumstances and against some difficult opposition as well. But I think we have been very, very competitive, even in difficult moments.
“I’m sure that when we have the full squad available, we’re going to be much stronger. Many, many things are coming against us. Our words are not going to be enough. We have to work, keep working to be positive.
“They have to be positive. In this moment, the confidence is not something that you can buy anywhere. We need all of us even more together, and our fans with the team as well.”
So far in this season’s League Cup Fulham have stumbled past Bristol City with the help of an own goal, Cambridge United through a solitary score, and Wycombe Wanderers on penalties.
But they are still in the competition, which above all is what matters in the cup, and they are now into the quarter-finals. For the third consecutive year, Fulham are two rounds away from reaching Wembley.
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Wycombe Wanderers: (4-2-3-1) Norris - Grimmer, Taylor, Hagelskjær, Allen (Harvie 57) - Leahy, Henderson - Onyedinma, Mullins (Boyd-Munce 68), Bell - Woodrow (McNeilly 68)
Fulham: (4-2-3-1) Lecomte - Castagne, Diop, Cuenca (Sessegnon 46), Bassey - Cairney (Iwobi 65), Reed (Lukić 71) - Traoré, King, Kevin - Raúl Jiménez (Kusi-Asare 74)
Attendance: 9,709