Fulham’s quest to lift a first F.A. Cup in club history took another major boost on Tuesday with Marco Silva’s squad reaching the quarterfinal round in front of their home fans.
Antonee Robinson and Tim Ream shined for the London club in a 2-0 Round of 16 victory over Leeds United at Craven Cottage. Both Robinson and Ream played 90 minutes apiece in Tuesday’s all-Premier League showdown, eliminating a trio of U.S. men’s national team teammates in the process.
Tyler Adams and Weston McKennie logged 90 minutes in the defeat for Leeds United while Brenden Aaronson played 16 minutes as a second-half substitute.
Fulham’s opening goal came in the 21st minute after Adams’ sloppy turnover in his own half of the field. Adams giveaway allowed Fulham midfielder Joao Palhinha to pick up the loose pass before unleashing a right-footed missile into the bottom-right corner of Illan Meslier’s net.
Leeds United continued to offer a threat at the other end of the field, but Marek Rodak made several key saves to keep Fulham in front. Manor Solomon extended Fulham’s lead to 2-0 in the 56th minute, giving the Israel international his fourth-consecutive match with a goal.
Aaronson looked lively off the bench as Leeds United tried to get back into the match, but the American attacker missed wide in the 79th minute. Leeds United were unable to fight back and force extra time, condemning to a Round of 16 exit from the competition.
Ream made eight recoveries and nine clearances in his performance while Robinson led all players with eight duels won and 12 recoveries.
Fulham will learn its opponent for the quarterfinals on Wednesday night while Leeds United now prepares for a league trip to Chelsea on Saturday.
Ream for me is still starting for the USMNT. Not one other CB is playing at his current level.
Adams all action style while admirable is starting to wear him down physically. He needs to find a balance with in games to utilize that style while being able to find times to slow it down. I maintain that the USMNT needs to find a proper passer in the midfield. McKennie Adams and Musah are all similar in their lack of passing abilities.
Adams needs a break, period! He’s been playing non stop since he transferred to Leeds from RB Leipzig, so I think more than anything else that’s been hurting his performances of late! The passing angle is on point too, we as USMNT fans have been complaining about he and McKennie not being consistently good on the ball, and Leeds fans are starting to see some of things as well. They’re still young, so they can work on it, but it needs to happen soon if we want to get where we want as a NT
Adams played like hot garbage. He was terrible. He was 100% at fault for the first goal. It was an extremely lazy giveaway. He was constantly a step too slow. Ream was Man of the Match.
I disagree he was 100% percent at fault, I’d say 60% at fault. If you watched the play, Roca went soft and pussied out of a 50/50 ball that Paulinho corralled, and Meslier was wayyy off of his line which gave him o chance to punch the ball around the goal, that was a mental mistake on his part!
I was really surprised how many Leeds regulars played today. They’ve got a lot of important club minutes ahead of them.
Maybe they need the practice.
Or maybe Gracia needs to see them up close and personal
Probably but there’s also likely a better way for guys to get “practice” in with the new manager. Like I don’t know practice. Staying up is the only thing that matters at this point. Even an improbable run to the FA Cup final would mean little if they go down. Wigan won the FA Cup in 2013 but were relegated. They haven’t been back in the EPL since and are primed to be relegated back to League 1 again for next season.
JR
“Wigan won the FA Cup in 2013 but were relegated. ”
Roger Espinoza pointed out that in some ways Wigan was relieved to get relegated because they really weren’t set up to stay in the EPL.
Right now Leeds looks like a AAAA team. Not good enough to be major league but too good for the minors. A yo-yo team.
Even if they stay up they will have a lot to do to move up from being perennial relegation contenders.
It’s also interesting how Leeds is showing us just how limited and how skill deficient Brenden, Tyler and Weston are, at least in club terms.
When you play internationally it’s usually pretty short term and players can usually raise their game over a short period of time.
But club ball is often long and grinding.
For example, Tyler has already played 22 games for Leeds. He has 36 caps.
Any serious Leeds fan has already seen more of Tyler in tough games ( they have all been tough) as opposed to a USMNT fan who has seen Tyler in only a handful of tough games.
While I only really care about Tyler when he plays for the USMNT it’s always interesting to see the dichotomy.
USMNT fans seem to absolutely believe that club success is a sure-fire predictor of international success and vice versa when the reality is often quite different.
I love Tyler but Leeds fans often compare him to David Batty who was a classic British hard man. Batty was a bit light on the skill side but he had a hard head and was mostly known as a really tough guy and a completely uncompromising defender.
I don’t really see Tyler that way but it’s enlightening that Leeds fans do.
Except you’re missing the financial side. Wigan eventually going into administration and dropping all the way to League One and almost to League Two. There is some talk that being relegated would cause the 49ers to back out of their bid to takeover majority ownership of the club. Espinoza can try to sugar coat Wigan going down but there is not a Wigan fan today that would say it was in anyway good for the club.
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As for the US players, relegation is probably irrelevant. Championship Leeds can’t afford players like afford Wes, Tyler, and Brenden if they’re in the lower league. All would be moved.
“Except you’re missing the financial side.”
I thought it was clear that unlike Leeds and their possible financial bailout by the 49er’s, Wigan had no sugar daddy waiting in the wings .
That’s why Wigan weren’t “set up” for the EPL.
This was back in 2013 I think and the foreign big bucks saviour for the “smaller” clubs wasn’t quite as trendy as it is today.
So some people at Wigan felt they were better off at a level where they could more consistently compete.
Look at Newcastle. Another historically “big ” club , they were pretty mediocre in the EPL under Mike Ashley, even getting relegated but bouncing right back, in part because Rafa stayed with them.
And now that they have their big bucks, Newcastle are suddenly legit again.
Get relegated and Leeds might drive the 49ers to some other team. If that happens I can see Leeds folding up and being forgotten forever.
I’m sure Tyler, Brenden and Weston are going to give everything because relegation will be a disaster for Leeds and it won’t be a great thing for them to have on their resume. But so far, Leeds Americans are looking pretty ordinary. So any moves for them out from Leeds could be downwards.
And if they can help keep Leeds up, it will be a big feather in their cap.
they went with a strong lineup because the haven’t gotten many training sessions under Gracia, but more importantly, they wanted to keep the winning momentum going after beating S’oto the Saturday before, which makes sense to me when you don’t have many wins in the league. Leeds have very few internationals, and the ones outside of Adams, McKennie, Aaronson and Rasmus Kristenssen(Sinisterra, Struijk, Rodrigo, Kock and Roca)either didn’t get called up for the WC or their nation didn’t qualify, so the rest team should be fresh.