Fulham 1 Birmingham City 0 – Onomah’s injury-time winner eases play-off pressure for Whites
Josh Onomah’s late goal secured Fulham a 1-0 victory over Birmingham City – to ease a little pressure ahead of two tough Championship fixtures.
The Whites have not been at their best since the Championship restarted and it looked as if they would fail to break down opponents who came into the contest on an eight-match winless streak.
But substitute Onomah fired past Lee Camp in the fifth minute of stoppage time to make it back-to-back victories for Scott Parker’s side and lift them to fourth in the table.
Crucially they have a nine-point lead over seventh-placed Derby County ahead of heading to Forest on Tuesday and then hosting Cardiff City.
Fulham’s performances under Scott Parker have tended to see superior possession stats but a struggle to carve out meaningful chances. And with Aleksandar Mitrovic serving the second of a three-game suspension, the Whites predictably lacked a cutting edge for long periods of this fixture.
Too many of Fulham’s attacking players seem desperately out of sorts. Ivan Cavaleiro was almost guilty of trying too hard to make something happen before he was replaced by Neeskens Kebano. Bobby Decordova-Reid, playing through the middle in the absence of Mitrovic, was anonymous. Lee Camp had to make a smart save at his back post to deny Anthony Knockaert but the winger has only scored once and produced two assists since the turn of the year.
The Whites had lost their first fixture back at the Cottage to Brentford and were shaky early on.
Michael Hector, a stabilising and dominant force for Fulham before the shutdown, produced an undercooked backpass which nearly let Jude Bellingham in.
Birmingham hit the woodwork twice soon after through Jeremie Bela and Bellingham.
Fulham’s second-half showing was an improvement, but that wasn’t exactly hard considering the laboured nature of their opening 45 minutes.
Birmingham seemed content to sit back and there was finally space for the hosts to work the ball around, adding some much-needed sharper short passing to their approach play as the pressure steadily increased in the closing stages.
Camp made a superb double save, first parrying Joe Bryan’s effort and quickly following up to frustrate Decordova-Reid in the closing stages.
It looked as if Fulham were set for their first stalemate at Craven Cottage since 2011 but Onomah left it late to make the breakthrough.
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