Fulham’s hat trick hero Aleksandar Mitrovic hailed a ‘big win’ as the Whites returned to the top of the table this afternoon after beating Bristol City.
The Serbian’s third treble of the season saw him move to equal eleventh in the club’s list of leading goalscorers, drawing level with Bobby Robson on 80 goals. He took his tally for this season to incredible 27 with a first half hat-trick and told FFCTV that this result felt significant:
“Big win. A good result for us. Nice to play at home again after almost a month. It was good to pick up three points. I thought we were the best team today and deserved the win. We had to keep trying, but eventually we scored.”
A modest Mitrovic played down his personal form, saying he was just happy to be playing football again after the spate of postponements that had seen Fulham have three weeks after Christmas without a fixture.
“I feel good. I feel nice, I feel happy. I hope I will continue with the goals. I feel good – maybe I will be in even better form, you never know? I feel good and I’m happy to be on the pitch.”
His thoughts have already turned to Tuesday’s meeting with Birmingham City at Craven Cottage – with another win the target as Marco Silva’s side will look to strengthen their hold on top spot.
“It’s another big game for us. We play again at home. Hopefully, the stadium will be full, nothing too hard. We have to try to win the game and get another three points.”
If Chris Wood is worth 25 million what price Mitrovic?
Fantastic performance apart from his goals over the last few seasons his international tally is non too shabby either.At least 40 million
Don’t forget Parker bet our survival on Cavaleiro as our centre forward last season and consequently benched Mitro. That was about as bad a decision as a manager could ever make. How many goals did we score at home last season…was it 9? I know it was the Prem but I’m pretty sure if you can’t score goals you can’t win football matches. We’re not exactly missing Mitro’s superior finisher at the moment whilst he recovers from injury.
Kebano’s one touch control, turn and exquisite finish was the highlight of this game for me. It was deserving of much more attention than it has garnered. Not so good was the gaping miss for his hat trick moments later. But this guy’s form is so so good and he is a constant menace.
Mitrovic, quite rightly, gets the headlines again with some devastating finishing-something we all know he is capable of. But, for me, it’s the massive improvement in his build up play that is so impressive. He is a more complete player than he has ever been.
As Dave says, the fact that one manager can discard both these players and, particularly in the case of Mitrovic, criminally prefer Cavaleiro-and another manager can, not only recall them but, somehow, improve them to their current levels speaks volumes.
It was also good to see Carvalho regain something like his early season form after some lacklustre performances.
After such an exhilarating first half, the second was always going to be a lot quieter but this was a very good performance.
Not good enough for Parker but more than good enough for the Fulham faithful and loved by them. Appreciated and loved by Shad Khan, senior non playing backroom staff together with Marco Silva and his coaching team.
He will go down in history with supporters as one of the most loved strikers who has ever graced our club.
Desperately want him to get a hat trick at Bournemouth and for him to do his cup the ear celebration in front of Parker.
Sorry to introduce a note of negativity, but I do wonder how many of Mitro’s goals this season would have withstood the scrutiny of VAR. A lot of his headed goals seem to end with his marker on the deck protesting that they were pushed. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to find out next season.
Nick your maybe not wrong on mitros ‘’ moving ‘ of a defender but as we don’t have VAR ( thank Christ ) and he is using that to his and our advantage, so please don’t be negative as all the top guys would say it’s classic front man play !! If you watched Andy Carroll against Robinson on Tuesday he did exactly the same.
Nick, l agree with Cliff, what about when we played Coventry, when the guy dived for the penalty & sending off Robinson, it changed the balance and the result of the match.
Late to this, but I would have thought that with VAR, Fulham would get a lot more penalties for all the shirt tugging and fouls on Mitrovic that seem to go on.