bent

Darren Bent hailed Fulham’s character after they came from behind to clinch a much-needed victory in the Capital One Cup against Everton last night.

The on-loan Aston Villa striker proved the matchwinner, scoring the winner just three minutes after stepping up off the bench, by clinically converting a quickly-taken free-kick from Giorgos Karagounis. It was Bent’s second goal in five appearances for Fulham – and capped an impressive comeback after they had trailed to an early strike from Steven Naismith.

I thought it was a positive performance. It was a hard game – you know what you’re going to get when you play against Everton. They’re a strong side and always make it difficult but I thought we showed character to come back from 1-0 down and get the result.

The second half was probably the best we’ve played this season. In the first half we weren’t poor but Everton did well and put us under pressure. Second half, we got to grips with them, created chances and scored two goals. There was really only one stage at the end where Stocky prevented it from being 2-2. We defended really well and I felt that would give us a chance at the other end on the counter. I thought we thoroughly deserved the win.

Bent was particularly pleased to get back amongst the goals after missing a glorious chance to put Fulham ahead in the derby defeat at Chelsea on Saturday.

I’ve come in and want to play games and score as many goals as possible. It was nice to come on and pop one in after the Chelsea game where I had a chance but Petr Cech saved it. It was good to get a chance and take it. I hadn’t discussed it with Giorgos; I just had a look at the situation, he gave me the ball and I got a shot at goal and it managed to go in.

There’s no reason why we can’t go on and have a really good season. We’ll take great confidence from that performance and now it’s all about Cardiff on Saturday. You never want to go into a home game having lost your last one so we’ve got the win and we go from there.