Fulham in ‘championship form’ thanks to Eric Cantona’s natural successor | OneFootball

It was after a 1-0 win over Fulham that Sir Alex Ferguson professed his undying love for that particular scoreline.

“What does it mean? It means championship form,” he said after Wayne Rooney’s goal helped barely deliver the scrappiest of victories.

“I don’t mind the 1-0s, I really don’t, because it tells you we are determined, we’re going to defend, do the right things and play as a team,” added the Scot, who four years later threw his weight behind Leicester’s unlikely title charge because their surfeit of 1-0 wins “points out to me that they are a unit, they’re not going to lose”.

“For instance, they’ve won their last few games 1-0,” he said. “I had a season at United where we had eight 1-0 victories and that won us the league.”

The Foxes did indeed hold on, although Manchester United’s “championship form” in March 2012 actually mutated into a biblical bottling weeks later.

Fulham will not concern themselves with such trivial matters. From the lows of 17th at the end of their four-game losing streak in late October, a three-match winning run has lifted them into the top half. Marco Silva will be eyeing an assault on Crystal Palace and Brentford rather than Manchester City and Arsenal.

But there is a remarkable subplot developing at Craven Cottage: the transformation of Raul Jimenez into mid-90s Eric Cantona.

The Mexican scored the winner against West Ham, taking him past the ludicrously strong 62 Club of Robert Pires, David Beckham, Yaya Toure and Stan Collymore for all-time Premier League goals.

And Jimenez’s last three strikes have been in 1-0 wins.

No other Premier League player has scored the only goal in more than a single 1-0 victory in 2025/26. And across Europe’s top five leagues, the most anyone else can muster is two.

Pavel Sulc, Yassin Belkhdim, Joaquin Panichelli, Wesley, Frank Anguissa, Nikola Vlasic, Giovanni Simeone, Johan Bakayoko, Ritsu Doan, Carlos Romero and Kylian Mbappe have been the difference a couple of times for their clubs this season but can only marvel at how consistently decisive Jimenez has been.

A total of 478 players have featured more often in the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue Un, but none can even match Jimenez’s direct and measurable contribution to his team.

Marco Silva said Jimenez “needed a goal” as “he’s not in his best in terms of confidence” but this week alone the forward has turned a possible two points or fewer into six.

That he has done so at uniquely pressurised stages of games should not be overlooked either: the 84th minute against Sunderland, the fifth of first-half stoppage time against Nottingham Forest and the 85th at West Ham. If Jimenez is lacking “confidence” it has been masked by an unerring ability to come up in the clutch.