There may be few more patient footballers than Michael Hector, the Fulham defender who spent half the campaign training but is ineligible to play while waiting for the January transfer window to cancel his £ 8m move from Chelsea which was it was agreed before autumn took hold.
Once that clearance came, he immediately took sides with Scott Parker, immediately impressing his debut against Aston Villa in the FA Cup to do one of the central points on his own. But then the coronavirus closed the world for three months and was left in stasis as more time was spent without action.
The 28-year-old has trained diligently, confident that he is in top form once football can resume, and has found a new level since the restart.
While last night’s playoff semifinal against Cardiff City involved Marek Rodak’s supreme work on goal and a collective effort to dismiss the Welsh team, it remains difficult to argue against Hector’s importance to the overall structure of Parker’s team .
Made up of how dominant he is, Hector is the man of glue in a defense that has greatly improved since his integration.
This was his 22nd league appearance for Fulham and they kept a clean sheet in half of them, taking 20 times (a figure massaged allowing three against Sheffield on Wednesday).
Before January Parker’s team had held seven save games in 26 games, conceding 30 times.
No wonder he was given the nickname of Virgil van Mike inside the locker room.
While he may have done more to prevent Lee Tomlin from going 2-1 to Cardiff at night, reducing Fulham’s overall lead to 3-2 and ensuring a nervous conclusion, Hector’s extraordinary moment came in the first leg of this game. Monday night when he made a remarkable sliding game to deny Robert Glatzel with the game still unscored.
It was undoubtedly the challenge of the life-saving game of the season in any division in England, but perhaps forgotten because of the quality of the goals that followed.
Hector may not receive the praise of the best scorer Aleksandar Mitrovic or the midfield stylists like Tom Cairney, Harrison Reed and, recently, Josh Onomah. But its impact cannot be minimized.
His next job will be to keep the fearsome front of Brentford three at Wembley quiet on Tuesday. It will be successful and Fulham will probably return to the Premier League and Hector will have the opportunity to desire for years.
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