The Tanner Report: Fulham 1 Newcastle 0
Although Newcastle garnered all the pre-match publicity with Fulham hardly meriting a mention in the build up, we played with intelligence and passion to achieve a deserved win. The conventional view was that Newcastle – who had bought in Dwight Gayle, Matt Ritchie and Mohammed Diame – and the fact that Rafa Benitez had stayed would win the Championship and Fulham, bereft of the striking force that kept them up -McCormack and Dembele – would struggle. I had a feeling this assessment was wrong at least as far as Fulham were concerned. Last season we brought in Tom Cairney, Richard Stearman, Jamie O’Hara, Tim Ream and Ben Pringle of whom only Cairney started last night. The desired improvement to the defence never happened and the team was short on width and pace. Head coach Jokatonic addressed these problems with the arrival of Kalas, Odio, Malone and Button in defence, MacDonald in midfield, Floyd Ayite on the wing and Aluko behind target man Matt Smith.
Both full backs struggled in the first half. Scott Malone was not covered by Ayite and the gap between Odio and Kalas was too big which Newcastle with Ritchie might have exploited more. There were fierce and justifiable Newcastle claims for a penalty when the ball struck Tunnicliffe’s outstretched arm from a cross. Matt Smith towering in the air gave the Cottagers a lead just before half time with a header from a corner. In the second half Odio improved and performed one outrageous piece of skill when he bounced the ball off his back and spun round the defender. With 20 minutes to go Jokatonic took Smith off which initially concerned me but the introduction of Christensen and Parker created two banks of four which frustrated Newcastle. They only managed one shot on goal all match.
There are definite causes for optimism after this result. We still have the McCormack money and some more to spend on a striker, defender and midfielder. We may struggle for goals but at the other end bodies were thrown on the line to block, Madl was majestic in his reading of the game and MacDonald a calm and clever deep-lying midfielder. Fulham’s decline over the last six seasons is reflected in a final position worse than the one before. For the first time I feel this decline has stopped and a real challenge can be made.
