Stefan Johansen ended last season in a blaze of glory as one of Fulham's key players.

He was the coal shoveller in the Craven Cottage engine room, linking defence to attack and pretty much running riot through opposition midfields.

But after the disappointment of the Play-offs, Johansen started the season half the player he was towards the end of the previous one, not having the impact on games and, at stages, ghosting through ties.

Nursing an injury didn't help - the Norway skipper was clearly struggling with it during the side's rough patch in October and November and it looked like it was taking a lot longer than anticipated to heal.

There was also the whole 'false nine' phase Slavisa Jokanovic went through, where Johansen was preferred to Rui Fonte and Aboubakar Kamara as the forward option.

That didn't really work, Johansen was clearly uncomfortable in the role and offered next to nothing - he didn't have the pace of Kamara and he didn't have the intelligence of Fonte up top to cause any problems, all the while wanting to drop back in midfield and help muck in defensively.

It was a tough period for the team and a tough period for him, but fast forward to March and Johansen is the player we remember.

(Image: Paul Burgman)

He seems to have shrugged off the injury from earlier on in the season and has got himself back into the engine room and is starting to dominate games once more.

In the past ten or so games, he's nearly been unplayable and looking at his OPTA stats for the season, Johansen has now had:

Most shots (41)

Third most goals (six)

Second most assists (four)

Most chances created (68)

Most blocked shots (18)

Most shots that have hit the wood work (two)

Highest number of total shots (59)

Most yellows (nine)

I spoke to Kevin McDonald after the Derby County victory about Johansen, and he agreed that he's picking up form at the moment.

He said: “Yeah Stef’s picked up a lot in recent weeks, at the start he was struggling a bit through injury but now hes starting to find form like he was last season.

(Image: Katie Lunn/Evening Gazette)

“He’s not scored as many goals yet, but he’ll get them as well, at the end of the day if he’s getting assists that’s all that matters.

“It doesn’t matter who scores the goals, so long as we get them and keep clean sheets, that’s the main thing.”

The fact he seems to have his hand in every pot on the stats list shows that he's becoming the all-rounder we saw last season - the attacking elements speak for themselves in that sense, but I want to address the yellow cards.

He's got nine now, and six of those have come in the past nine games, including an extremely cynical one against Derby where he cut down Casey Palmer as he raced through.

(Image: Joe Giddens/PA Wire)

Of course, you'll get people that hate the cynical side of the game, but for me, the amount of yellows he's gotten shows he's getting stuck into the game a lot more than he was in the first half of the season.

If McDonald gets beaten, or the ball is passed by him, Johansen has to be the man there as the insurance policy, and that is exactly what he's been doing.

People talk about Tom Cairney, Tim Ream and Ryan Sessegnon being important to the team, and they'd be correct, but when Johansen is firing on all cylinders, Fulham are also on red hot form.

Keep up to date with the latest news in west London via the free getwestlondon app.

You can set up your app to see all the latest news and events from your area, plus receive push notifications for breaking news.

Available to download from the App Store or Google Play for Android .