Craven Cottage Newsround

Roy and Brian here.

It was a deceptively cold afternoon by the Thames, featuring a strong wind and light, icy rain that fired down all game. Fulham played far better than a 19th placed team should. Everton will not have enjoyed their Sunday. Newcastle, our next opponents, may well be worried.

Not because Fulham were fantastic. That would be an exaggeration. But at last we see a team out there, playing well as individuals and as a group. Today Roy went for a 4-4-2 which gave us much more oomph up front and worried Everton all game.

We started slowly, the main route of attack being Kasey Keller’s wind assisted bombs deep into Everton territory. They weren’t pretty and they didn’t make anything happen, but it seemed to keep Everton pegged back. As did the pace of Eddie Johnson. The new centre-forward, starting alongside Brian McBride, clearly has much to do before he is a force at this level. His touch can be poor and his shooting erratic, but he is learning to link with his teammates, and his pace gives us a real threat on the break. With any other Fulham player up front opponents can push up, safe in the knowledge that they will not be burned. Not now. We had options: over the top, or through neat movements in the middle of the park and on the flanks. Variety is everything in attacking play, and it is something we have lacked for too long.

Alongside Johnson, McBride had his best game for a long time. The team’s leader won everything in the air, and won it constructively too. His flicks often found white shirts and were frequently starting points for Fulham raids. He worked hard as usual, but now there was threat, now there was cohesion. Fantastic.

And it was McBride who scored the winning goal. Simon Davies, who is faster than he looks, whizzed all the way down the left flank before whipping a fine cross into the box. McBride arrived and planted his header into the ground, up, and into the far corner. The crowd, frighteningly noisy anyway, blew up into a cacophony of joy. A goal! A motherfucking goal!

Until then the concern had been that, for all the possession, for all the neat passing (and the not so neat passing too - there was a lot of that too), Tim Howard’s day had been quite quiet. Everton, famous thieves of away points (they had won seven away games before today), were starting to prowl around the edge of the Fulham box. A heartbreaking, season-breaking, defeat seemed possible. But Fulham 08 is more solid than Fulham 07, and managed to find the magic when it was needed. Special stuff.

All of this was possible because of our defensive solidity. Konchesky was back to early season form, Hangeland took care of the high stuff, and Hughes and Stalteri were both massively impressive. These pair are quiet, understated footballers, but know what they’re doing and do it well. It’s now a back four that picks itself.

In front of them Leon Andreasen, Danny Murphy and Simon Davies were all terrific. Jimmy Bullard, the fourth muskateer, had a quieter game, perhaps because of the extra responsibilities required of him in a midfield four, but again, it’s a quartet that picks itself when it plays like that. Nice to see something coming together like this, it really is.

Funny how around this time of year there’s always something strange afoot at the bottom of the league. Suddenly teams put something together, start to play, to get results. You can feel it happening, you really can. We’re not done yet.

The gallery:

Defence was pretty much perfect today:

Yakubu killed us at Goodison.  Today we kept him in check.

Three of our better players today, all in a line:  Davies, Murphy, Stalteri.

The end!  Kasey signs for the kids.

I’m writing from the pub so I’ll just make a quick post so you can leave your comments until Rich makes his game report. But a big win today against a team that we probably shouldn’t have gotten a win against. But we played well, again, and this time very much got what we deserved. Thanks to Adam and Stephen who gave me moral encouragement to wear my lucky Fulham slippers. By the way, the slippers are now 2 wins and 1 draw.

COYW!

The weather in South London is absolutely dire this morning.   It’s cold, windy, and pissing it down.   It may not be a pretty match.