---
title: "Unsung Hero: Tom Cairney vital to Fulham despite not scoring"
canonical: "https://www.footballtransfertavern.com/unsung-hero-why-tom-cairney-was-captain-fantastic-for-fulham-during-millwall-victory/"
type: "post"
language: "en-GB"
author: "Stephan Georgiou"
section: "Features"
published: "2019-08-23T06:05:27Z"
modified: "2019-08-23T06:05:27Z"
---

# Unsung Hero: Tom Cairney vital to Fulham despite not scoring

**Fulham’s display against Millwall has won the Whites all sorts of praise – be it from [Scott Parker](https://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2019/august/21/scott-parker-press-conference-millwall), the [adoring fans](https://twitter.com/FulhamFC/status/1164276004979925006) or even opposition manager [Neil Harris](https://www.skysports.com/football/fulham-vs-millwall/report/409391).**

![](https://cdn.footballtransfertavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Unsung-heros.png)

Parker’s men played the Lions off the park at Craven Cottage, dominating the possession and passing statistics in [record-breaking](https://twitter.com/OptaJoe/status/1164276768867590145) style on their way to notching their [third successive win](https://www.skysports.com/fulham-results).

[Ivan Cavaleiro’s](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49340157) double gave the on-loan winger a third goal in two games after his match-winning strike against [Huddersfield Town](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49288073) on Friday, while Anthony Knockaert scored his first in a Fulham shirt before Aleksandar Mitrovic grabbed his third of the season from the penalty spot.

[![Championship Picks](https://cdn.footballleagueworld.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Championship-Picks-Desktop.png)](https://championshippicks.uk/)

But with Fulham putting on a show for the fans under the lights, it was the man with the armband that may have been underappreciated for his part in the Whites’ commanding victory.

Tom Cairney, who capped his last home appearance with his beauty of a strike against [Blackburn Rovers](https://www.skysports.com/football/fulham-vs-blackburn/409364), was very much conductor-in-chief for last night’s performance.

His performance adds to the midfielder’s impressive start to the campaign, with his tally of goals and assists already surpassing that of [last season’s](https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/tom-cairney/leistungsdatendetails/spieler/123275) after a brace of [assists](https://www.whoscored.com/Players/79583/MatchStatistics/Tom-Cairney) that led to Cavaleiro’s double – the latter of which being a perfectly-lofted [through-pass](https://www.skysports.com/football/fulham-vs-millwall/report/409391) over the Millwall defence before the Portuguese rounded the goalkeeper to add further gloss to the scoreline.

The team also reached a pass success rate of [94%](https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1381389/LiveStatistics/England-Championship-2019-2020-Fulham-Millwall) – helped in no small part by Cairney’s individual total of [98.2%](https://www.whoscored.com/Players/79583/MatchStatistics/Tom-Cairney), which is no mean feat for the 28-year-old having achieved a higher percentage in the win over Huddersfield last weekend.

So while Cairney was not able to put his own name up in lights by getting in on the act during the Fulham rout, there’s little denying his influential performance judging by his individual accomplishments on the night.

***Is Cairney the best midfielder in the Championship? Join the discussion by commenting below…***