Story of the game
Fulham, still hunting down automatic promotion after both Brentford and West Bromwich Albion suffered defeat, put themselves in the driving seat within 10 minutes. Former Sheffield Wednesday loanee Michael Hector manufactured the opening with a superb crossfield ball which had Moses Odubajo all at sea.
Neeskens Kebano anticipated the ball would float over the head of Odubajo, brought the ball under his spell before he darted infield and struck low past Joe Wildsmith at his near post from 25-yards.
The visitors had their first chance of the game in the 21stminute, Josh Windass’ through ball ran perfectly into the path of Kadeem Harris. Harris carried the ball into the Fulham box, but his shot was tame and straightforward for Marek Rodak.
Just five minutes after Wednesday threatened, Aleksander Mitrovic doubled the hosts lead. He struck across Wildsmith after Josh Onomah’s through ball cut right through Tom Lees and Julian Borner.
On the 40-minute mark Kebano was upended by Dominic Iorfa just inside the area and Mitrovic made no mistake from 12-yards to score his 26th of the campaign.
Jacob Murphy and Atdhe Nuhiu were introduced to the action at half-time and made an instant impact. The former was brought down by Rodak for a dubious penalty before the latter converted from the spot to make it 3-1.
72 minutes in the game appeared to have been put to bed once more when Kebano craftily notched his brace when he fired his free kick under the jumping wall which left Wildsmith stranded.
But it wasn’t game, set and match yet.
Murphy saw his shot trickle past Rodak after a deflection off Kebano to make it 4-2, the Newcastle loanee then turned provider again 10 minutes later as Nuhiu bagged with a bullet header to further reduce the gap to 4-3.
Just as Wednesday aimed to pile on the pressure Bobby Decordova-Reid did finish the game in the 91st minute with a long-range drive, Wildsmith was beaten from 30-yards once more in similar fashion to complete an action packed contest on the banks of the Thames.
Takeaways from the game
Fulham blistering from the off
Scott Parker’s side set off like a house on fire in a fashion that Wednesday’s backline was unable to grasp in the first half. They battle was always going to come between Mitrovic and The Owls defence. The big Serbian certainly proved to be on top with his two first half goals. Lees, Borner and Iorfa alike were unable to handle the exploits of the Championship’s top scorer. While Mitrovic was causing headache after headache for Tom Lees and co. Neeskens Kebano profited with time and space out wide hence his first goal.
Monk’s half-time changes stimulate fightback
Garry Monk deserves a modicum of praise for his proactive substitutions at half time. Windass, Alessio De Cruz and Odubajo made way for Murphy, Nuhiu and Connor Wickham and all proved to be successful substitutions, Murphy was the catalyst to the first and third goals scored by the big Kosovan while he also found the back of the net himself via a hefty deflection. This still is not good enough however for The Owlsstill desperate for points, the opening 45 cost them regardless of how positive their performance was after the interval. Nuhiu’s brace racked up his overall goals for Sheffield Wednesday to 50, the first person to do so since former frontman Marcus Tudgay did so in 2009. With that he also became just the second person alongside Tudgay to hit 50 goals for the club this century.
Man of the Match: Michael Hector
It was terrible viewing for any Wednesdayite that watched Hector at the heart of their defence last season as he swept up all of the club’s end of season rewards with an exquisite campaign. He very nearly returned to the club on deadline day at the beginning of this season, but the West London club beat the Yorkshire club to his signature for around £8 million from London neighbours Chelsea. He was at the heart of Fulham’s attacks from the centre of defence he set up the first goal with a 60-yard diagonal ball, minutes later he found Cyrus Christie with another 50-yard-ball this time with the outside of his foot.
Defensively he was also solid in a back three that conceded three goals he was at fault for precisely none and instead prevented Wednesday adding to their record as the division’s highest away scorers.
View from the dugouts
Garry Monk told the press:
”If you score three away from home you expect to come away with the points but we compounded it with schoolboy defending and that’s the only way I can describe it. Because of errors we’ve made ourselves which has happened too often in the second half of the season.
“They are very cheap errors which should only happen rarely in a season and not consistently. We cannot work as hard as we do to take steps forward to then take steps back, it’s very frustrating. They were poor, poor goals.
“I said at half time, cut out the errors and you can get back into it but when we had them on the ropes, we cost ourselves. The majority of them in there can do it but the time for talk is done and that transition now needs to happen.”
Next up for both
The Owls finish their disappointing season off at Hillsborough against Middlesbrough while Fulham can still achieve automatic promotion with a victory against Wigan Athletic depending on the results of West Brom and Brentford.
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