A talismanic performance from Raúl Jiménez has seen him win his first Man of the Match award for the Club.
His first two Craven Cottage goals were very different, but both brilliant strikes.
Number one was all about timing and composure, as he stayed onside to get onto Andreas Pereira’s slipped pass, before lashing an unstoppable shot into the top right hand corner.
His second showed strength and audacity. Again Andreas was the provider, clipping a ball into Raúl who took it down on his chest, held off the challenge of Ola Aina – who is no weed – before rounding the goalkeeper and cheekily popping a rabona backheel into the net.
It was more than just Raúl’s goals that won his MOTM, though, with his hold up play impeccable throughout, while he also won all four of his aerial duels.
With the game won and West Ham on the horizon, he was given a rest with 11 minutes to play, meaning there would be no hat-trick, but the blow of that was softened as he departed to a standing ovation from the home faithful.
“That was a nice moment,” Raúl told FFCtv. “I tried to thank them, and I would like to continue like this to make them happy.
“I needed this kind of night. I’m really happy to score, to score twice in a game is fantastic for me, so I’m going to keep going, keep pushing, to achieve more goals.”
Almost half (48.2%) of the fans who voted went in favour of Raúl, with his fellow brace-scorer Alex Iwobi coming in second on 20.9%.
Tom Cairney had another dazzling display in the middle of the park, and came in third with 19.8% of the vote.
