LEE BOWYER seemed to know exactly what was coming.
After his Birmingham City team drew at Preston on Saturday, an interviewer told him: “Quick turnaround now for the Fulham game on Tuesday, they’ve won 6-2 today…”
Bowyer winced and replied: “What’s that, 13 goals in two games? Looking forward to that then.”
And so it came to pass that Birmingham suffered the same fate as Bristol City at Craven Cottage – a 6-2 hammering, and that on the back of Fulham’s 7-0 away thrashing of Reading the previous Tuesday.
Marco Silva’s men are the first English team in 88 years to score six goals or more in three consecutive matches – and have the best goals-per-game ratio in the country this season.
The gubbing of Reading, after an identical scoreline against promotion-chasing Blackburn in November, made Fulham the Football League side since the 1890s to achieve two 7-0 away wins in the same season.
With a goal difference of +47 and 20 matches still to play, the Championship leaders are on course to break the all-time national record of +79 set by Manchester City four seasons ago.
Fulham visit Pep Guardiola’s champions in the FA Cup on February 5 and, at their last three games, delirious supporters have been singing ‘Manchester City, we’re coming for you!’ – a chant which started off with gallows humour but which has now got them wondering.
Yet Fulham’s ultimate aim for the campaign is to become the first English club in history to yo-yo between two divisions for five consecutive seasons.
Because the whopping great asterisk against their recent scoring sprees is that Fulham have not even come close to survival in their last two bungled attempts at the Premier League.
Last season, Fulham scored just nine Premier League goals at the Cottage – three fewer than they have managed in the last four days.
Along with Norwich City, who keep moving in the opposite direction, Fulham are suggesting that the gulf between the top two divisions is higher than ever.
This is, undoubtedly, an historically-poor Championship – financially battered by Covid.
Fulham are too wealthy, too ruthless and too good.
The most remarkable aspect of the Birmingham thumping is that leading scorer Aleksandar Mitrovic – 27 goals in 25 appearances – failed to score.
The Serb’s every achievement is met with the idea that he is ‘too good for the Championship, not good enough for the Premier League’.
Yet Mitrovic managed 11 top-flight goals in a terrible team three seasons ago and last year he suffered a confidence crisis – triggered by a missed penalty for Serbia against Scotland which denied his country qualification to the Euros – and rarely started under Scott Parker.
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Under former Hull, Watford and Everton boss Silva, Mitrovic has been re-born – his all-round play, as well as his prolific goalscoring, is phenomenal.
Nobody who watches him regularly doubts that the 27-year-old is capable of being an effective top-flight performer.
Parker’s departure to Bournemouth was borne of deep frustration with Tony Khan, who runs the club on behalf of his father Shahid, and showed naivety in his approach to the Premier League.
Yet while Parker made Fulham hard to beat during the middle of last season, nobody at the Cottage is missing him.
As Silva’s expansive side play with a beautiful cruelty, employing an uncommon bloodlust for eye-catching scorelines, it is often noted that Parker would string five or six defenders across the back to protect slim leads Fulham were last promoted.
During this last extraordinary week, Fulham have scored in dizzying blitzes – four goals in 13 minutes at Reading, the same again against Bristol City and three goals in eight minutes against Brum.
At times, they look as though they are employing a computer-game cheat mode.
Rivals will point to the largest playing budget in the division – and the £12million signing of winger Harry Wilson, who scored twice and was involved in four more goals at Reading.
Yet Silva has also revived several long-serving players wearied by Premier League humblings and snubs – wideman Neeskens Kebano, defender Tim Ream and skipper Tom Cairney are playing some of the best football of their careers.
Yet Silva’s side have suffered two serious form blips, most recently in December, leading Parker’s Bourenmeouth and Blackburn by just five points.
Before the Reading game, Fulham hadn’t won since November 20 – although three consecutive opposition sides called off matches over the festive period due to Covid.
Promotion is by no means guaranteed and on Saturday we will discover whether Silva’s swashbucklers can do it on a cold January afternoon at Stoke.
But however many goal-scoring records they shatter during a joyous season, Silva knows that finishing 17th in the Premier League next term would be a more significant achievement than any of them.
Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sportingexcitement.com/football/premier-league/barcelona-offered-endless-list-of-transfers-including-man-utds-cavani-arsenals-aubameyang-and-chelseas-werner
