HARRY Wilson believes last weekend’s sickening defeat at Liverpool was the perfect motivator for Fulham to produce back-to-back 5-0 home wins.
The Cottagers were leading 3-2 at Anfield with just three minutes remaining, but ended up going down to a 4-3 after late goals from Waturu Endu and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Wednesday evening’s response was an emphatic 5-0 demolition of Nottingham Forest at Craven Cottage.
And today West Ham suffered the exact same fate as Fulham made it three home wins on the spin to move into the top 10.
Wilson told FFC TV: “It has been a big week for us with three games in a week. We started off by scoring three goals at Anfield and not coming away with anything.
“It was tough but we took a lot of confidence from that because not many teams are able to go there and score three.
“We’ve taken that into the two home games. We know we have to make this a tough place to come for teams and thankfully we’ve done that this week.”
Wilson also feels Fulham had to deliver a good December following two months of lacklustre results, claiming the club had to make a statement after that dip which was halted by the late November 3-2 win over Wolves.
“I feel like we had to,” when asked if Fulham have to make a mark now confidence levels are back up again.
“The previous month was a tough one for us in terms of the results, losing games late on and not scoring the goals that we wanted to.
“We saw this month starting last week as a big month for us in our season. We’ve started it well. We’ve got a few tough games to go with Newcastle away next week followed by Everton in the quarter-finals of the cup.
“They’re going to be two tough games but I think if we keep putting in performances like that then we are going to be ok.”
Wilson came off the bench today to replace the injured Willian with Fulham already 3-0 up thanks to Raul Jimenez, Willian and Tosin Adarabioyo.
The half-time substitute made it 4-0 on the hour with an excellent strike into the top corner, making it a half century of goals for the Welsh winger.
“I didn’t know it was my 50th career goal so that is a nice milestone to get to,” a delighted Wilson said.
“TC (Tom Cairney) played me the ball. I think I had a couple of runners, so my first thought was to bring it down and try and slide one of them in.
“But I think as soon as I took my second touch I seen it open up so I thought I’d try my luck. Thankfully it went in.”
Impressively 22 of Wilson’s half century of goals have come from outside the box, so there are plenty to choose from when asked where the West Ham goal rates among that collection.
“It is definitely up there,” he revealed.
“Although it is nice to score the long range ones, or the ones that end up in the top corner, I’ll take a few more if they just bounce in off my knee if that tally keeps going up.”
Wilson turned provider to set up Fulham’s fifth goal for Carlos Vinicius to complete the rout and send West Ham back across town empty handed.
For Fulham now the challenge is to maintain their current scoring spree, something Wilson puts down to better decision making in the final third.
“I think we just keep getting in the right areas,” he explained.
“At the beginning of the season, we were getting into good positions but maybe the runs in the box weren’t there, or we weren’t filling the spaces.
“If you look at the Wolves goals a couple were back post, a couple against Forest were the same and then again today.
“We are getting into the positions and the quality from out wide or deeper is there.
“There are players getting on the end of them and the confidence that people are getting from that is helping.”
