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Fulham return to winning ways in bizarre fashion at Huddersfield and move clear of relegation zone

Huddersfield Town 0-2 Fulham

Kit Symons was left feeling perplexed as Fulham beat Huddersfield Town in a game that saw two missed penalties and the wrong player momentarily sent off.

Alexander Kačaniklić opened the scoring directly from a corner early on and Seko Fofana doubled the lead in the 97th minute.

But it was the incidents in between that caused the most outcry. On the hour mark, Cauley Woodrow was sent off for a deliberate handball before referee Richard Clark, after speaking to the fourth official, changed his mind and sent off Shaun Hutchinson instead.

Nakhi Wells saw his resulting penalty saved by Marcus Bettinelli and hit the post from another ten minutes later after Jazz Richards had brought down Sean Scannell.

Cottagers manager Kit Symons was pleased was the win but admitted it was a peculiar match.

He said: “It was probably the most bizarre game I have ever been involved in.

“We scored at the beginning and at the end and in between Huddersfield were by far the better side.

“Marcus made some great saves and we had some good defending and some poor defending.

“We had a man sent off – the wrong one to start with – and the six minutes at the end felt like an eternity.”

Fulham started strongly, winning a corner inside the first minute that Kacanikilic squeezed into the near post.

The first half was uneventful after that but the second half really came to life.

Huddersfield pressed for an equaliser and thought they would get it when Fulham were reduced to 10 men, but they were made to pay for Wells’ misses from the spot.

With the game winding down, Fofana found himself free to score his first Fulham goal and seal three points.

The victory moved Symons’ side eight points clear of relegation but he admitted they were lucky.

He said: “Wednesday night against Leeds we played 10 times better but ended with a 3-0 defeat. We had 28 shots to their eight and lost 3-0.

“This was almost the exact opposite.

“It’s one of those things. We massively rode our luck, Marcus made a few great saves, a few unorthodox saves, we had some manful defending mand some poor defending as well to get us into trouble but then somehow managed to get ourselves out of it.”

Feature image courtesy of Fulham FC, via Youtube, with thanks

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