Brian McBride admitted scoring the crucial goal that set Fulham on the way to a vital win over Portsmouth was a special moment.

The American’s acrobatic finish at the Putney End settled plenty of nerves at Craven Cottage and successfully killed off Harry Redknapp’s side. Ever the professional, McBride insisted getting the three points was more important:

“It felt really good to score. My family were all here, and it was the first time that my girls had come for a long time, so it was really special. But the most important thing was that we won and that’s all that really matters.

The ball bounced perfectly for me. I wasn’t going to win the header, so I tried to second guess what he was going to do and it just fell nicely for me. I could see the goalkeeper coming out, so I knew I had to take it quickly, and I was able to turn and hit it over his head.”

McBride left no-one in any doubt how much he enjoys partnering veteran Andrew Cole, who scored Fulham’s first goal of the afternoon, up front.

“But it was the first goal that was big time – if you look at Coley’s run, he goes in, comes back out, Boa zips a ball into him and he deals with it brilliantly. To place the ball into the far corner like that was real quality. Playing with Andy is a real pleasure. He makes great runs, and he’s so dangerous – one moment the defender thinks he’s got him, and the next he’s running off his shoulder. There’s always going to be chances when he’s around.”

McBride isn’t counting any chickens when it comes to Fulham’s Premier League survival just yet.

“There’s a still a lot to be done. You never know what’s going to happen, so we’ve got to go into every game doing everything we can to win it. It’s a big step forward, but we’ve got a lot of big games ahead of us and we want to keep winning games not just pick up the odd point here and there. We’ve got to concentrate on ourselves, not worry about what other teams might be doing, go out and focus on winning.”