The pragmatism of Scott Parker’s Fulham triumphed over the doomed idealism of Thomas Frank’s Brentford in a game that failed to live up to the billing
And so, ultimately, it all came down to this. A full year of toil; 120 minutes of grim application, in many cases a lifetime of longing. A free-kick in a seemingly innocuous position on the left wing. A defence maintaining an audaciously high line, a goalkeeper anxiously patrolling the space behind it and a left-back who spied an irresistible opportunity to write himself into folklore.
That, ultimately, was all it took to send Fulham back to the Premier League and leave Brentford in the Championship for another season. On one level, it felt unspeakably senseless for something this important to be settled by something this silly. But then again, here we all were, watching a terrible game at an empty Wembley Stadium in August, with fake crowd noise being piped over the airwaves and a socially-distanced national anthem at the start. Perhaps, on reflection, the ship had already sailed on that score.
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