Fulham 2-1 Bolton

A 2-1 hammering.   Fulham, featuring the speedy Andy Johnson up front for the first time, destroyed Bolton with a complete footballing display.

What stood out was the sheer variety of our attacking play.  Aside from the familiar pinball passing, we now saw the team prepared to launch the ball into the channels for Johnson to race after.  Often he turned these passes into something threatening; Bolton never quite got to grips with this and were lucky not to be beaten more heavily.

We haven’t seen football like this for a while.  Bobby Zamora was influential, holding the ball up well, able to impose himself physically against a very physical side, able to turn on the burners when he needed to.  What a good signing he looks.  Zoltan Gera found space cleverly all game; Danny Murphy was imperious in the middle of the park; Jimmy Bullard was back to his best.  Only Simon Davies still seems slightly short of top form, and only because he set such a high standard last season.

The front six Fulham players were pulling Bolton all over the place, and a deserved early goal came from the right foot of Zoltan Gera.  Good work from Zamora down the left, the ball cleared, but Gera, on the edge of the box, thumped home a low drive to make it 1-0.

Zamora had earlier shown the immense Danny Shittu that he wasn’t afraid of a physical battle, but on 40 minutes our man confounded the big centre-back with an astonishing spin that left his marker tackling air.  In that instant Zamora escaped a second Bolton defender, then buried his shot into the bottom corner for an absolutely thrilling strike.

At this point Fulham were untouchable, cruising.  But a third goal was needed to make it safe.

It didn’t come.  Johnson, playing for the first time in a while, ran out of steam.  Zamora picked up a knock in the process of shooting, and as these two started to wilt the team’s passing became less threatening.  Still they knocked the ball around well, but Bolton were not so stretched now.  Fulham’s crossing today was frustrating, in that several fine balls narrowly missed onrushing white shirts, but that vital third goal seemed to have arrived when Davies swung a cross over the area and onto Gera’s head, but his header bounced back off the bar.

At 2-0 games are never safe, and Bolton promptly scored a nothing goal from a free-kick to make the game worrying again.  We should have been out of site, but instead had to handle a number of kitchen sink attacks late on.  Mark Schwarzer, not for the first time this season, was impressive in dealing with all this.

Roy will hopefully have been pleased with this.  Two successive home wins over very different teams, and the signs are that we have the makings of a fine side here.  True, Bolton were just the wrong side of ordinary, and true, we didn’t beat them by much, but there’s something good about this Fulham team and the way it plays.  Watching Johnson out there today was like seeing a competent pizza base being given some cheese and tomato.  It would be silly to call him the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle – only big clubs come close to finishing jigsaw puzzles – but he looks like he might be a very good player.   This, in front of a defence that looks increasingly solid, is most encouraging.