Fulham of England midfielder, Josh Onomah is celebrating being part of his club’s immediate return to the English Premier League just one season after they were relegated from the top-flight, and now looks forward to being part of their assault next season in the upper echelon.
Megasportsarena.com reports that Onomah’s latest dose of joy comes after he got a starting shirt with The Cottagers for Tuesday’s English Championship promotion-play-off final against Brentford Town at Wembley Stadium and starred in top fashion until he was replaced in the 110th minute by Maxime Le Marchand.
Although Onomah and his teammates put up a gritty performance to beat their fellow-London-based promotion seekers 2-1 in Tuesday’s ultimate clash lots of credit from analysts went out to their coach Scott Parker led Fulham back to the Premier League at the first time of asking – with a tactical masterclass to beat the Championship’s top scorers in the play-off final.
This time out, there was no goal from the Nigerian-born Onomah, who was named to the best 11 of the semi-finals, following his wonder goal that helped his side win 2-0 away to Cardiff City in the first leg, before they lost 2-1 at home in the reverse fixture, and reached the final 3-2 on aggregate scores.
He, however, held firm in midfields, as an unusually compact Fulham sealed promotion with a well-measured performance in the final and carried the day thanks to a delectable brace of goals by Joe Bryan, as free-scoring Brentford were kept quiet by The Cottagers’ defence.
Onomah’s coach was truly delighted with his side’s victory and explained how Bryan’s opening goal – a long-range free-kick which caught out David Raya at his near post – had been crafted, as well as how Fulham switched from their usual 4-3-3 to successfully frustrate Brentford.
Tuesday’s result means Onomah’s team become the first club to win the Championship play-off final twice in three years and Bryan believes they are better equipped this time around than they were the last time they secured promotion in 2018.
Parker told Sky Sports: “The opening goal was planned. We looked at Raya’s positioning from free-kicks, he’s very aggressive. I called Joe over before the free-kick to try to make out we were doing some tactical thing, let’s move it over, but I told him to keep an eye on his positioning, and commit to the shot. He did it, and it worked.
“We did it in the last game and it went nowhere near the goal – tonight, thankfully, it’s worked. My staff deserve full credit for that. The tactics were to be defensively solid, match the triangles up on the sides, we knew the front three are dangerous, and when they got to the sides of the pitch we had to commit men over there and match up.
“You find a lot of Brentford’s goals come from the sides of the pitch. We’ve worked on being really diligent, in terms of winger, full-back, holding midfield player, and we wanted to get Bobby Decordova-Reid inside and create numbers in and around the middle of the park.
“I thought that worked really well, we had control first half, we were brave, second half we lost it a little bit, but I thought we still had a bit about us. It worked really well tonight. The facts are, the reality is, you can’t really enjoy it.
“You win a football match and by the time you get to Saturday night, having a beer or a Chinese, you’re already thinking about Monday morning, the next game. We live in a world and a profession where you win a game, you lose the next one and you’re deemed a failure.”
