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Tim Ream eyes promotion with Fulham as Championship season winds down

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Fulham is one of many sides in the EFL Championship fighting for automatic promotion back to the Premier League. With Wolverhampton Wanderers sealing their promotion last weekend, Fulham is hoping to join them in a runners-up place.

U.S. defender Tim Ream has a had a strong season for Fulham, making 41 appearances which is the most of any centerback in the squad. The London club recently dropped points however, drawing 1-1 with Brentford last Saturday. They currently sit in third place with 82 points, a point behind Cardiff City who currently occupies the final automatic promotion spot.

After the disappointment on Saturday, Ream is eager to get back to action.

“They threw everything at us at the end and up until Saturday we have dealt with that pretty well but on Saturday we didn’t,” Ream said via a club statement. There’s no two ways about it. We know what the situation is and we know that starting with Millwall on Friday night we have to win and there’s no getting around that.

“We’ve proven in the last couple of games that we don’t have to play nice football or turn on the style as much as we would like to, and we haven’t done in the last three games and we ground out wins but today just wasn’t one of those days.”

Fulham led their London rivals in the 70th minute after Aleksandar Mitrovic scored at Craven Cottage, but they were unable to hold on. Neal Maupay’s equalizer for Brentford came in the 94th minute, grabbing the visitors a share of the points.

“Saturday evening was tough to take but we’ve drawn games in this run to it’s a game we have to now put behind us and get ready for Millwall,” Ream said.

Fulham is unbeaten in their last 21 league matches, last suffering a loss on Dec. 16th at Sunderland.

Comments

  1. That Brentford draw hurt them. Especially since they’ve not beaten Brentford since what the early 90s. But even if they had won auto promotion is Cardiff’s to lose: they’ve a game in hand with just four or five games to go. Plus they face Millwall away, who’ve also been doing very well. Millwall is barely in the promotion spot with Derby and Sheffield United very close behind. I expect a really tough game. Still, Fulham have a chance and Ream has been outstanding for them since about December. The hammyend does good write ups FYI. Will be interesting to watch these playoffs: Villa (with that injured geezer Terry among others), Middlesbrough (with Cameron’s former coach Pulis) and the thugs down at Millwall. Plus, Derby until a season or two ago had a US owner. And while I’m spiraling down the yank hole CCV played briefly for Sheffield U this season (before being loaned yet again to Ipswich for being a whinger). I’m rooting for Ream & Co personally.

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  2. As a Fulham fan I hope we get promoted back up. I also, to put it nicely, wish American fans could develop an affection for the team based on last traditions and not the American of the Month. Ream has lasted longer than many but I find it annoying when the waves come in and then back out each time we sign an American. It’s a London team on the Thames embankment. The stadium is cool with the old school cottage and the roof accents (when I was there you could stand). Why not stick around.

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    • Why not stick around? How about because most of us have no connection to London, Thames, Craven Cottege etc. If they had 3-4 Americans again, I would try to watch all their games, but as soon as they didn’t I couldn’t care less if they got relegated to League 2

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      • Yevgeniy- Agree 100%. The weekend is too short to follow a team I have no connection to. I have 3-4 teams I care about that don’t feature American players, but that’s about it. IV may “find it annoying” that we drift in and out of following Fulham, but setting aside the snobbery, you’re gonna have to give me better reasons than your dime tour of London to convince me…

      • You could say this about virtually every team abroad except a handful of overdogs where you are almost more cheering for your recurrent success than because you like what the team stands for. If you wouldn’t cheer for DC one year, LA the next, Seattle after that — varying with their fortunes — why on Earth would you be an Everton fan when Timmy or McBride were there, or a Fulham fan for their list, or in my favorite example, the people who streamed towards Swansea only to find them quite un-American, and the way they turned on Bradley (a good coach) when that went south?

        That to me is part of the “danger” of being a fair weather fan who follows Americans around, is sometimes you figure out they don’t like the player or coach and maybe in the process sort out they don’t like you either.

        The one fair point is like Fulham if they go down then from our perspective they drop off many TV radars.

    • As a Villa fan, I think I’d prefer to see Fulham in the automatic promotion spots because, all things being equal, I’d rather face Cardiff in the playoffs at the moment.

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    • Who cares if they care. Its not your job to recruit Fulham supporters in the states. Only the real ones understand COYW

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      • Totally agree Gomer Pyle!

        @ The Imperative Voice – to be fair while I question anyone picking a European team to root for after the age of 25, I have a lot more respect for someone picking Fulham as opposed to Man City (I think worst offense!), Barcelona, Bayern, etc.

      • The Dynamo are the team I follow every week. Until last decade I had no home MLS team so I kind of had to look elsewhere. I used to live in SW London for a period (and watch the games) so I still follow how Chelsea and Fulham do (I went and watched QPR one afternoon and it was abysmal atmosphere). A European team is not my favorite, but there I would parse between people who develop gestalt loyalties and the functional equivalent of a Patriots fan who just wants to root for a winner. To me the presence of Americans at many clubs is often transient, sometimes unfruitful, and can result in people pretzeling themselves beyond recognition. The new Swansea fans who have to about face on the team after they turn out very anti-American when they bring in American owners and coaching, and the coach is then quickly fired. The people who were like Fulham til they die for Dempsey and then turned on a dime when he moved to Spurs, savaging Fulham. You might as well just root for the player.

        I also think considering how poor Ream was playing for the USA the idea of people being drawn back to Fulhamerica because of him is a tad odd. I am glad they are getting closer and closer to promotion but I wouldn’t assume Ream necessarily is around if we go up.

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