What a brilliant game Chris Baird had in the Fulham midfield last night. Played the ball and moved forward, not afraid to try a couple of forward balls for Zamora to chase, and kept looking to spread the play wide. He’s very close to becoming undroppable now. No wonder he’s delighted.
Obviously it was disappointing going a goal behind but we picked ourselves up and got a goal back. Obviously the sending off had a bearing on the game but having said that we were on top.
To get this far, even before this result, has been a great journey for us and we didn’t want it to end. This was a bonus for us after having a great season last year and to get to the Quarter Finals of the Europa League is a massive achievement for the Club.
I got a text from one of my mates saying ‘you don’t get much bigger than that’ and to be fair I don’t think we’ve had bigger than that in our careers. We’re going to enjoy it but we’ll be looking forward to the next game now.
It’s important to continue that form in the League on Sunday when we play Manchester City because that is going to be another very tough game.
I agree. Baird was phonomenal last night. He carried on where we left off at Old Trafford (and indeed every other game where he’s played CM) – I lost count of the number of times he intercepted Juve passes or nicked the ball away from their players. His reading of the game is simply exceptional.
In addition, I don’t think it’s a laughable at all to suggest that his range of passing is the best at the club’s other than Danny Murphy (maybe Simon Davies, but certainly not at the moment). Strangely enough, for a midfielder who is a defender by trade, he seemed more adept at playing the Danny Murphy role rather than the Etuhu role, spreading the ball about and playing balls over the top for our strikers and wingers to latch onto.
He was certainly up there as my man of the match. But, then again, so were the other 11 outfield players who had time to make an impact. Credit to the much-maligned Stephen Kelly too, he was excellent. But just like in the Fulham-Bolton game, the Davies-Duff partership on the right flank was just devastating against teams that are sitting back.
What a game. What performances. What atmosphere – the Putney end was simply buzzing throughout.