Reading of England youngster, Ovie Ejaria gained plaudits from his coach, after netting twice for The Royals in their English Championship clash with Fulham, which his side won 2-1 away from home.
Megasportsarena.com reports that Reading’s coach, Veljko Paunovic was grinning from ear to ear, after Ejaria produced two outstanding finishes to inflict a first home defeat of the season on Fulham at Craven Cottage.
The Cottagers started the day as Championship leaders but they were trailing from the 19th minute when Ejaria found the top corner with a curling shot from the edge of the box.
The 23-year-old former Liverpool youth team player produced an even better effort in the 53rd minute as he collected Alen Halilovic’s chipped pass on the turn and side-footed past Cottagers ‘keeper Paulo Gazzaniga.
Fulham replied in the 86th minute with Rodrigo Muniz heading home from close range after Aleksandar Mitrovic directed Harry Wilson’s cross back across goal.
Reading, who earlier ended a winless four-game run with victory over Peterborough, began to threaten once they had settled and they forced the lead when Ejaria finished following a sweeping move.
The Cottagers carried on from where they had left off after the restart with Ivan Cavaleiro immediately forcing Luke Southwood into action.
However, Reading struck again when Ejaria doubled the lead with a superb finish, after Halilovic was again at the heart of the move.
Halilovic intercepted Tim Ream’s pass to launch the counter-attack and was then on hand to chip a superb return pass into the path of Ejaria who turned as he controlled the ball before slotting home.
Halilovic drove forward on the right before squaring for John Swift who moved the ball quickly on to Ejaria and the left-sided midfielder cut in onto his right foot before beating Gazzaniga.
However, Reading held on in the face of strong late pressure to record back-to-back successes for the first time this term, while Fulham slumped to a second defeat in three games.
Paunovic eulogised afterwards: “Ovie had an amazing performance. We see that in training many times and we encourage him to do that more often in games.
“Every time we brought the ball to him there was some excitement and he was very clinical in execution. We have to get the ball to him more often.
“It’s difficult to say which was my favourite goal but I’ll say just because of the beauty of the execution the first goal.
“I’m delighted with many things. The result, the performance. The way we ground out the win and three parts. I think there were a lot of pieces that were missing in the past.”
