Fulham scrape through penalties at Wycombe to reach EFL Cup last eight

Woodrow and King score for both sides before Lecomte heroics win dramatic shoot-out

Fulham’s league form might be falling to pieces… and our cup performances aren’t much better! But, for a brief while, this is immaterial - through a game we went a goal down in, via a nervy penalty shootout that stretched into sudden death, Marco Silva’s team have scraped themselves through another tight match against lower league opposition. Wycombe Wanderers (like Cambridge and even Bristol City) can be proud of their effort tonight, and will likely fret over how close they came to making the last 8 of the League Cup - for us, the relief of avoiding another miserable headline will have to suffice.

First Half

Fulham fans, amongst reading the changes made to our own team for the cup, may have noted a couple of familiar faces in the home strip today. They’d certainly realised a few minutes after kick-off. What seemed a routine goal-kick morphed into Wycombe possession and a goal for Cauley Woodrow, once-upon-a-time a Fulham academy prospect. Some early dithering from Fulham let them take the ball, and through Onyedinma, Leahy and Mullins, Woodrow stepped away from King and angled his body to whip the ball goalwards, sailing between Lecomte’s dive and the right-hand post. It was a brilliant strike, and ought to have been a wake-up call for Silva’s squad - Wycombe were not interested in giving Fulham an easy evening.

Premier League teams aren’t alien to being caught off guard, and with a bit of energy the quality in our line-up should have been able to kick us into gear. We certainly got on the ball - Bassey at LB easily morphed into a three-CB backline, Castagne moved to the right to overlap with Traore and Reed sat deeper to allow Cairney to try and operate closer to the forwards. But possession hasn’t been the problem of late with Fulham, and evidently Wycombe were prepared for our gameplan. Bell, the LM, was confident tucking into defence, cooperating with Allen to stop our overlaps from inflicting damage, whilst Taylor was sharp to balls heading into the box. The forwards had the speed and awareness to track back, denying Fulham space in the final third. Henderson in particular was valiant in midfield, winning the ball and feeding it to Bell and the rapid Onyedinma.

We didn’t help ourselves though. The football was slow, sometimes turgid, and our players struggled to put Wycombe under serious pressure, be it through hesitating on the ball or playing awful passes. Andersen’s long-balls from defence were really missed, as Cuenca smacked several out of play. Reed wasn’t much better, as his distribution swung between ponderous and pitiful (far too many attempted dinks). Kevin had the pace down the left but Jack Grimmer, another former Fulham talent, was alert, and won several battles against the speedy Brazilian; Traore’s unwanted parlour trick of running, slowing and losing the ball reared itself far too often, with Castagne inheriting the poor crossing whenever he managed to get the ball on the right.

Granted, there were some chances. King was easily our brightest spark, the one player putting some life into the attack, and his work taking the ball forward brought out the best in his teammates. On one occasion, Cairney bent an effort created by the young starlet just wide, and another saw him wriggle into a shooting position but drag the ball along the floor into the keeper. Whilst the majority of the crosses were dealt with, Jimenez ought to have done more with the ones that weren’t, heading balls from Kevin and Traore straight to Norris. Wycombe too had their moments, hungry to pounce on the break, and Cuenca and Diop needed to be sharp with their clearances to stop them doubling their lead. Onyedinma writhed free of Bassey on the left a few times and had a shot swing just wide at one point - Fulham would have really felt the pressure of the cup then.

Second Half

Evidently Silva needed a response from his players, and his substitution demonstrated our need for attacking intent. Cuenca was perhaps unfortunate to have his game end at half-time but the arrival of Sessegnon, switching with Bassey to play at LB, was a clear message to the players - step up the attack. And what a change it was - after a couple of quickfire stabs at goal from Mullins flew by, Kevin and Sess worked the ball quickly down the left, won a corner off Onyedinma, and from the Brazilian’s delivery King flicked his foot upwards and directed the ball up into the net, quicker than Norris could get his hands up. 1-1 - arguably one of Grimmer or Leahy should have made contact before the diminutive King did but the finish was exceptional, from our best player thus far, and set the stage for Fulham to blow Wycombe away entirely. Right?

The proceedings looked positive for us - Sess had Grimmer in his sights, linking well with Kevin to travel down our left. King, active as ever, was key to a few opportunities here, turning defenders to run into the space behind them. Kevin received the ball on one such turn, seeing his shot pushed over the bar by Norris. But the sharpness of the team isn’t where it ought to be, and after Wycombe’s fears of being felled by our quality subsided, the game settled back into its first half trappings - long spells on the ball, hesitancy in the final third being punished by astute Wycombe defenders, Fulham scrambling back to stop Bell and Onyedinma bursting into our box unopposed.

Premier League players train to a higher intensity than those in League One, and Wycombe’s troops started to tire - Allen came off for Harvie, Woodrow and Mullins were switched for McNeilly and Boyd-Munce and the team sat deeper in their half to absorb the growing pressure. We’d started tweaking things ourselves - after Cairney needed Reed’s help to deal with a surging Bell, Iwobi arrived to add a bit of energy to our engine, and the aforementioned Englishman left for Lukic’s steel shortly afterwards. Traore’s pace was starting to sink Wycombe’s left-flank - again though, the composure in the box wasn’t there - Jimenez was too awkwardly placed on the turn to fire an immediate shot, and Kevin snatched at the Mexican’s lay-off by putting his effort over the bar.

Other than speculative long-throws from Hagelskjaer, Wycombe were firmly camped in their own half. Jimenez, a ragged figure after weeks of intense football, trudged off for the lesser-spotted Jonah Kusi-Asare. Whilst the Swede didn’t quite have the grace of a top striker - or, at times, a professional footballer - he at least occupied the minds of Taylor and Hagelskjaer enough to give King a little more space. The substitutions were working to some extent. Lukic had us recycling the ball well, and Iwobi’s insightful passing had the team in dangerous positions frequenlty. Our shooting boots had deserted us though, and made the end of the game a frustrating watch. From the left, Iwobi’s pass to King saw him shoot over the bar, whilst a cross produced from Traore cutting inside fizzed just past the boot of a slow-to-react JKA.

Such mistakes compound, and drained the confidence of the team. Kevin was still a livewire but his clinicality had deserted him, smacking a string of crosses out of play under little pressure. Traore, much as in his weaker moments in the first half, worked himself into terrific positions but took too long to think, overcomplicating his moves and being tackled by the defender. Even as we started poking serious holes in the defence, the ball wouldn’t find the net. Iwobi’s vision produced a killer through ball for Kevin, who strode into the box on the left, cut inside but placed a low effort along the ground for Norris to stop with his feet, and King again flashed at a similarly well-timed ball from the left to drag it wide. Traore, to his credit, kept plugging away down the right, and might have had an assist in the closing minutes - Norris’ sprawling punch from one effort gave Kevin a shooting chance with the keeper off his line, but his effort was grounded and Hagelskjaer cleared it off the line, and with the last serious effort King couldn’t get the ball out from under his feet quick enough to pull the trigger. And with the end of stoppage time, the full-time whistle brought about a dreaded tie-breaker - penalties.

Penalties

Are there fans that can stomach watching their side in these contests? It doesn’t matter that our record with penalties under Marco has been decent (since our promotion, ignoring the Preston marathon shootout, we’ve won all of them) - the thought of being dumped out of the cup on penalties, to Wycombe no less, makes the whole thing miserable.

Henderson, one of the night’s better players, took the first one for Wycombe… and what a relief, Lecomte dove right, pushed the shot away, and gave us an early advantage! Lukic struck a powerful effort to the bottom left of the goal to put us a goal up. From here, the scoring fluctuated between the sides, Wycombe keeping themselves in the game, Fulham overcoming the nerves to reestablish the advantage, etching a step closer to the next round with each conversion.

Leahy drove his to the bottom right for 1-1,Traore smacked a powerful effort high and left for 2-1, Boyd-Munce struck a quick penalty leftwards for 2-2, Kevin’s weird, stuttery run-up snuck past Norris for 2-3, Hagelskjaer slammed a shot above Lecomte for 3-3. Iwobi, perhaps reminding us that penalties aren’t a procession, had his penalty correctly predicted by Norris… but the ball ricocheted upwards off his arm and made it 3-4, and Bell once again levelled the scoring with an excellently placed effort into the top left corner for 4-4. Thus, Sessegnon had the chance to finish the game with the final penalty of the regular shootout. What could go wrong?

It felt inevitable that something would go wrong. A poor shot to the Norris’ left was stopped by the keeper, the home fans went wild, and it felt as though the stadium would cave in on Fulham. Thankfully, Lecomte was still awake, and pounced on Wycombe’s first poor penalty since the first - Onyedinma’s effort was correctly predicted and pushed away from the right of the goal. A second match point for Fulham then… and up stepped Jonah Kusi-Asare, phantom striker, curiously positioned beside the ball for his strike. His acute dink didn’t trouble Norris, who calculated the angle JKA’s stance would inevitably take the ball and prevented the goal. Again, we have Lecomte to thank - an acrobatic punch stopped McNeilly’s powerful strike flying in. Finally, Issa Diop calmly stepped up to take our third match-winning penalty - not wanting to give Norris a chance, he cannoned his spot-kick into the top left corner, sealing the shootout 5-4 and taking us through to the next round.

Frustrating Night for Fulham

The Fulham fanbase is in varying states of discontent at the moment, and other than the relief at avoiding being kicked out of the cup by an EFL side there won’t be much respite from the negativity. There were bits and pieces that worked on the pitch - King is a diamond in the rough at this point in the season, Iwobi demonstrated again what is possible when he’s trusted in the centre and actual pace from Kevin and Traore against fullbacks can get the ball into the box when they focus. All of this is tempered by the fact the opposition plays two divisions below us, and certainly don’t have the luxury of introducing numerous international footballers to help salvage the match!

If anything, more questions might be produced from the game. Jimenez was broken and exhausted when he came off and urgently needs a rest, but Kusi-Asare looked extra-terrestrial alongside the Fulham regulars and it feels a massive leap to see Silva trusting him in the Premier League. Reed works hard off the ball, but his tempo and quality on it is mediocre, and the difference in both when Lukic came on illustrates why he’s had such a hard time getting gametime in recent matches. Kevin has the spark, and definitely the speed, when he’s on the ball, but is infuriating to watch - Grimmer got let off a few times by the Brazilian miscontrolling his touches and losing possession on his own.

And Adama Traore… there is a sensational footballer somewhere in the man, and when he rolls the figurative double-six and pieces together a rapid, mazy run with a smart cross you can see what it would look like. Unfortunately his teammates don’t finish the crosses he puts in, leaving the spotlight fixed on far, far too many ugly moments of Traore bungling scorable opportunities with tedious, lethargic decision-making.

We should take the chance to praise Wycombe here, who were responsible for much of this frustration. There’s a good case for several of their players to be MOTM, and not just because of the Fulham connection! Grimmer led the team diligently, both centre-backs should be proud of their resilience in the face of numerous dribbly attacks and Henderson bolstered Wycombe around the park excellently, even coming close to crafting goals for the hosts. I don’t think the portrait of the game is solely Fulham grasping at nothing - our opponents were effective enough on the night to take us to sudden death in a penalty shoot-out, and that deserves commendation.

However, they will return to lower-level ability in League One this weekend, and we have a must-win game against Wolves, a team with a manager surely eyeing a win at Craven Cottage to kickstart their season. It is imperative that the better elements of tonight’s match - King’s dynamic attacking, Iwobi’s creativity, Lukic’s composure on the ball and Sessegnon and Kevin combining nicely on the left - are bottled and elevated to the level of the Premier League. Cuenca’s early substitution suggests he is being saved for the game, but regardless the defence cannot have the complacency to coast and expect Wolves to roll over for us, as I suspect might have influenced the team during Woodrow’s early strike. There’s a lot to get right on Saturday, and a lot we need to avoid - for now, let us at least be proud of another quarter-final appearance in a domestic cup.