John Arne Riise was delighted with what he described as a ‘massive win’ over Arsenal this evening as it completed a fine return of five points from Fulham’s tricky festive period.
Martin Jol’s side followed up draws at Chelsea and Norwich with a come-from-behind victory at Craven Cottage that has the Whites upwardly mobile for the first time in a while. The Norwegian left back felt the run of three games at the end of 2011 and the start of the New Year has shown Fulham at their fluent best as opposed to the dismal drubbing by Manchester United before Christmas.
Everyone talked before the season that the Christmas period was going to be very important to us because we would be meeting all the big sides. We did very well and we are quite happy how we went.
We just didn’t play our type of football against Manchester United. I know we were playing maybe the best side in the league, but we were disappointed and a little embarrassed about how we played and to lose 5-0 at home.
But we showed character to bounce back – drawing against Chelsea, nearly beating Norwich away and now beating Arsenal, so we know we are a good team. It’s a massive win for us. This is the kind of game where we don’t expect to get three points, but we did.
We played quite OK first half and had a few chances, but gave them too much space to counter-attack, so in the second half, we decided to be more compact and I thought we played some good football. They gave us a lot of space and we attacked quite hard on the flanks and second half we deserved to get at least a draw.
Even before the sending off, I felt we were playing well, but when they lose a man, it’s going to be hard for them and when we get that extra energy to push on again.