Ryan Babel was delighted to learn that he had won Fulham’s 2018/19 Goal of the Season.
The forward’s stunning curler in the 1-0 win over Cardiff City came out on top of some fierce competition, and Babel paid tribute to the Whites faithful for their backing.
“I want to thank the fans for voting for my goal,” he said. “I appreciate the support and I am grateful to have scored such a goal, especially of course because it was in a home match that led to us winning the game.
“I can imagine that the season must have of course been very frustrating for the supporters, but I hope I could have at least brought them some moments with a little bit of joy.”
Babel’s contributions to the Fulham cause since his January arrival were impressive.
In his 15 starts he was involved in eight goals (scoring five, assisting three), and subsequently came close to pipping Aleksandar Mitrović to second place in the Player of the Season vote.
In his first interview upon arrival, Babel outlined his intention to prove himself in the Premier League - so, does he feel he did that?
After a long, pensive pause, he answers: “I mean, yeah, I think I have hopefully cleared doubts that people had about me from 10 years ago.
“Since I left Liverpool I noticed that, especially the English people, they didn’t really follow my career after. It’s funny because when I came back the reaction of the majority in England was like, ‘oh, I thought he’d retired!’
“But I guess I was able to erase a little bit of the negativity from the past around my persona. But a big part of my feelings is still that I failed to help the Club stay in the Premier League.”
That inability to keep Fulham up is something that clearly rankles with Babel.
“It’s my first experience of being relegated with a team,” he explained. “Before, you look at teams who get relegated and you see their emotion and stuff, and you can imagine that it sucks after you work so hard to stay up.
“And now you experience it yourself and, yeah, it’s tough, it’s tough to take. Especially now, after how you saw we played in the last months, you think, ‘oh, we were able to reach a certain level to maybe maintain Premier League,’ so that’s an extra pity.”