Unlike me, Jamie was at Ewood this afternoon. Here’s his report. Great stuff as ever.
So – after the highs of two consecutive wins, a disappointing result. This was a day that had begun full of promise and good cheer – literally – some bright spark had realised that ‘John Paintsil’ has the same number of syllables as ‘Michael Vaughan’ and thus a new chant (to the tune of ‘Kumbaya’) was born. Our current cult hero was worshipped repeatedly throughout the first half, and Fulham’s travelling fans had further reason to be in good spirits. The team had continued where it left off against Bolton, passing crisply and intelligently, with Simon Davies especially impressive, and we were only denied an early goal when Paul Robinson (‘England’s number six!’) made a brilliant reaction save from Andrew Johnson.
It was an open game. We were playing nicely, but Blackburn were also finding too much space around the edge of our area (that central midfield issue again) and Emerton nearly capitalised when he waltzed into the box and curled a shot against the bar. Other from that, our opponents seemed happy to concentrate their efforts on trying to get someone sent-off, and it was astounding that three reckless challenges within ten minutes were punished only by two bookings. Two of these tackles were on Jimmy Bullard, who was also targeted by Kevin Nolan last week. Something to keep an eye on, perhaps – could it be that, realising the seriousness of his recent knee-injury, Premiership managers are cynical enough to instruct their teams to intimidate Bullard out of the game?
Unfortunately, on this occasion it worked – in the second half Bullard less effective as he clearly (and understandably) shirked a number of challenges for fear of getting clobbered again. The referee, perhaps realising (or having been told) the error of his earlier ways, was now giving many of the marginal decisions Fulham’s way, which aggravated the home crowd. A couple of challenges started flying in (I feared our hero Paintsil might let it all get to his head) and for a short spell it looked as if things might spill over. All, of course, because the referee had failed to assert his control in the first half. And it’s always the sign of a bad official who manages to anger both sets of players and fans during a match.
The descent of the game into scrappiness did not help us: we were, of course, without a scrapper (undoubtedly something that Paul Ince and Blackburn realised). A couple of chances were created for – and missed by – Johnson and Zamora, but then the rest of the team began to fade with Bullard. Gera, strangely quiet, tried swapping wings with Davies but was equally ineffective on the right as on the left. Our front pair began to look tired, and Murphy was the most ragged of all – clumsily fouling, miscontrolling and misplacing passes. But no movement was forthcoming from our bench. Ince, on the other hand, brought on three players, and for the first time his team began to look like they might cause us problems. The away crowd grew quiet and sat back nervously, our ambitions now revised to securing the 0-0.
Sadly, with five minutes remaining, Blackburn conjured up a good goal. Villanueva chipped a clever ball into Santa Cruz, who headed down for Matt Derbyshire to finish neatly. If I were being harsh on Roy Hodgson, that previous sentence might have read: Lively second-half substitute Villanueva chipped a clever ball into Santa Cruz, who headed down, and substitute Matt Derbyshire used his fresh legs to get ahead of Brede Hangeland and finish neatly.
As supporters with emotional investments which ultimately hang more on results than performances, it’s easy to channel our frustration after a defeat by convincing ourselves there was an easy solution. There’s no guarantee, of course, that any changes would have made a difference to the eventual outcome. But one can’t help wondering, for instance, how Leon Andreasen might have relished the opportunity to get himself involved once the game began to get heated in the second half. Or how, watching Bobby Zamora grind to a halt, battered and bruised after an afternoon of grappling with Christopher Samba, Erik Nevland must have been itching to come on and influence things as he has done in the past.
A minor quibble, compared to our problems of recent seasons? Probably. Roy is doing a solid job, no doubt – we’re continuing to play good football and indeed on another day this was a match we could just as easily have won 1-0 as lost. It wasn’t a bad performance. But it was an opportunity missed, and a bad result. And it’s especially frustrating to watch these matches slip away given some of the real promise we are showing. Let’s hope next week cheers us up again.
