Fulham 1 Swansea City 2










On Friday night I was in London for the Happy Mondays and I made a weekend of it with the Fulham v Swansea match coming in between an evening out for Paul's birthday. I haven't actually seen Swansea since they played Fulham in the old division 4, some time in the mid-90s. However, as I am also going to be at the Norwich game in a couple of weeks and am hoping to go to Villa v Swansea at Christmas they could become quite a familiar site.

Neither of the teams looked really effective although the game was entertaining enough. Fulham seemed to let Swansea come at them a bit too much and only Scott Parker and Derek Boateng looked interested in stopping them. Up front Berbatov and Bent don't exactly look like the dream team, as having 2 players who have such an adversity to tracking back means that Fulham were effectively down to 9 players when Swansea were on the attack. Swansea seemed to be guilty of messing around with the ball a bit too much when they could have had the game wrapped up a lot earlier than they actually did.

In the first half there were a few chances for both teams, but both Bent and Berbatov were wasteful in front of goal. The best chance for Fulham coming from Darren Bent who hit the post. Swansea probably had the best chance of the half though when Kieran Dyer came close , but Stekelenburg pulled off a fantastic save.

Swansea started off the second half as the better of the two teams and it was no surprise when they took the lead through an Aaron Hughes own goal after a mix up in the 6 yard box on 56 minutes. If anyone had the spirit to get the Whites back it was probably Scott Parker. On 64 minutes he had a shot at distance that went flying into the top corner of the goal. We'll say it was a shot, as we thought he meant it at the time, but people in another stand think he may have been trying to cross it in.

Swansea were probably the stronger of the two teams though and although at times after the equaliser they looked like they may have been happy to get a draw it came as no surprise when they got a winner. With 10 minutes left Jonjo Shelvey, on as a substitute, scored a stunning goal to send the Jacks back home to South Wales with smiles on their faces. To be honest he should have had another one in stoppage time, but I don't think any of the away fans would have been too bothered about that. I doubt that the Fulham fans were as misgiving though, especially when it came to some naive technical choices by Martin Jol.

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