Fulham beat West Brom 3-0 in a one sided affair at Craven Cottage to move far away from the dreaded relegation zone.
The Baggies goalkeeper, Scott Carson, was to be blamed for the first goal as he could not gather a shot from Simon Davies just before the half time. Steve Davies set up the 2nd goal with a well taken corner which Clint Dempsey headed in, and once
again Davies was the provider when Brede Hangeland received his cross to head in the 3rd.
The last time these two teams met was in October at the Hawthorns, when West Brom moved into the top after a 2-1 win. However, things did not go so well after that for West Brom and they lost 8 out of 11 matches, and both the teams have been fighting hard
to move away from the relegation zone.
Mark Hughes, the under pressure manager of Fulham, was booed off the field by home fans when West Ham beat Fulham at Craven Cottage. However, a big win against the Baggies and a hard fought narrow win against Tottenham have helped improve his reputation
with the Fulham fans.
As the game kicked off, it was Fulham that got out of the blocks the quickest. West Brom defense were put under immense pressure by the Cottagers. The Baggies had a make-shift defense and out of the 4 in the backline, 3 were enforced changes.
The first chance of the game came after http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Diomansy-Kamara-c11343. The African controlled the ball well, turning around, and let it fly, but Steve Carson did well to make the save.
Fulham did have a lion’s share as far is possession is concerned, but they failed to create too many goal scoring opportunities, while West Brom grew in confidence and continued to attack.
Fulham continued to dominate the game and after the half hour mark, they started to create more and more chances, and the West Brom defense continued to struggle against the constant pressure. Things got worse for West Brom when John Pantsil accidentally
caught http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Nicky-Shorey-c27735 at left-back.
Hangeland should have put Fulham up by one off a corner when he jumped high to get to the ball, but his header was ill directed and went past the post. There was a mix-up in defense as Dickson Etuhu looked to have got the ball from Youssuf Mulumbu unfairly,
but the referee decided to let the play continue. Davies got the ball and his shot went straight through Carson into the back of the net.
The 2nd half saw Fulham exerting more pressure on the Baggies and continuing to move forward. Damien Duff almost got the 2nd early in the 2nd half, but his shot went just wide of the post.
However, they had to wait just a couple more minutes to get the 2nd; Clint Dempsey jumped higher than the rest to head one home from a corner sent in by Steve Davies. It was, once again, Davies who sent in a corner from which Hangeland made it
3 nil. The win pushed Fulham all the way up to 13th place and they would be relieved to get far away from the relegation zone.
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