Man-of-the-match Jay Stansfield said it felt ‘unbelievable’ to score at St. Andrew’s as Fulham beat Birmingham City to progress in the League Cup this evening.
The England under-21 international spent last season at St. Andrew’s, scoring thirteen goals as Blues were relegated from the Championship, and Stansfield’s second Fulham goal ensured the Whites eased into round three after a summer that saw City fail with an audacious attempt to sign him on a permanent basis.
Stansfield saluted the long-range passing of Joachim Andersen in describing his goal to FFCTV after the final whistle:
“One of my key things is making runs in behind and being active on the front line. As soon as I made the run, the ball was absolutely perfect, I could bring it down and the finish is what I work on every day in training. I sort of know when I’m in that position that it’s going to be a goal. It was an amazing ball by Joa and he said, ‘Try and make some of those runs in behind’ and it ended up in a goal!”
The former Exeter striker praised the St. Andrew’s faithful for helping him grow as a player last season and admitted he is hungry for more opportunities to shine in a Fulham shirt.
It was a good game. They are a very good team, they like to play football and they gave us a good game tonight but I think our quality showed. We were lucky to get the two goals and settle the game nice and early. The Birmingham fans gave us as much love as I had last season. It was a lovely feeling – to see this amazing crowd, when I was here they really took to me early and we got a connection that helped me become the player I am today.
As a centre forward, I want to show people what I can do and get as many goals as possible. I had a little niggle in training a couple of weeks ago, I’ve come back and I felt good out there today. It feels unbelievable – my last goal for Fulham was so it was unbelievable to do it again. I’ve been working hard in training and I want to take every opportunity I can to put the Fulham top on and see where it takes me.
Great attitude and a genuinely good player who has had to do it tough for the last couple of seasons.
He is back now and, hopefully, he will get many opportunities to demonstrate that he has all the attributes to be a top player.
IMO there is nobody else at the club that has as good an eye for scoring goals and the hunger to go with it.
His main issue is that he doesn’t have the stature to carry the front line on his own and he’s not a winger. He is probably best suited to playing alongside a stronger number 9 but, unless Marco Silva changes his playing philosophy, that doesn’t seem likely. He prefers to play with two wide players, even though neither might be good enough to contribute. Go figure!
Really impressed with Stansfield both on and off the pitch again.
He’s always looked to make an impact regardless of what level he’s been playing at – for Fulham’s age group sides, the first team or on loan at various levels.
I’d slightly disagree with Charles in that I view him as very much a modern forward, who can play in a number of positions. He did very well behind the main striker for Birmingham at times last season in a struggling side and I think playing as a wide forward is the perfect position to run in behind defences as we saw last night.
He also speaks very well for someone who is still young and has experienced so much tragedy in his life. Pleased he’s made the most of his opportunity to start a game and hope he gets more over the course of the season: he’s a very different forward to the others we have at his disposal.