Fulham's cue taken from consistent Volz

14 April 2012

Fulham 2 Watford 0

Committed, reliable and consistent are the attributes which Fulham fans most readily associate with Moritz Volz. The German might argue that goalscorer should now be added to the list.

The 21-year-old full-back has waited more than 17 months to score his first Fulham goal but an angled drive in the 13th minute provided the impetus for a comfortable victory in the FA Cup replay at Craven Cottage.

Fulham can now look forward to a fourth round tie at Derby on Saturday week. However, they will be without Zesh Rehman and Papa Bouba Diop at Pride Park after both players picked up their fifth yellow cards of the season.

Volz will play a part against Derby, provided he recovers from the shock of ending a goal famine that lasted 62 appearances.

"I didn't expect to score," he said. "I didn't have any celebration planned but I'm delighted I got the goal because whenever people ask me what I would like to improve on I say it would be nice if I could get some more end product in my forward play."

Fulham were assured of their place in the fourth round when Tomasz Radzinski stroked the ball home midway through the secondhalfas Ray Lewington's side struggled to find the form that has done for two Premiership clubs in the Carling Cup this season.

The Watford manager's team selection indicated he was taking last night's match seriously, though his players' application suggested their minds were elsewhere - namely next week's Carling Cup semi-final second-leg against Liverpool.

"We are really disappointed," Lewington said. "Sometimes we lack a bit of quality and still have a go, but last night we were missing that. I haven't seen us like that for a little while."

Victory for the home side extended their unbeaten run to five matches, the best sequence since Chris Coleman was appointed as manager.

Volz said: "We see the FA Cup as a positive thing that can get us going in the league. It's something we can build on now because we haven't had consistency throughout the season. It would be nice if we could take that confidence to Birmingham on Saturday."

Volz admitted that grinding out wins was more important to Fulham at the moment than playing pretty football. He added: "Our main perspective right now is not to please the crowd but to get results. We are taking less chances at the back because we haven't kept as many clean sheets as last season. We are not happy with our situation but there are a lot of points to play for."

Last night's replay marked Lee Clark's return to the starting lineup for the first time since March last year. Coleman withdrew the former Newcastle midfielder, who has been plagued with Achilles problems, just after the hour mark, though he was pleased with his contribution.

The Fulham boss said: "You can see he's not back to what he was but what he needs is games,

"He's not lost half a yard of pace - he never had it anyway - so I'm not worried about that. He's still got his football brain and he still leads the team. All he needs now is match sharpness."

Coleman is confident Edwin van der Sar will agree a one-year extension to his contract today while Fulham are "very close" to signing Manchester City's former Millwall, Wimbledon and Tottenham left-back Ben Thatcher.

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David Jones (Footballer)

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Fulham's cue taken from consistent Volz

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