Brighton 1 Fulham 2

So the honours went to Alan Tanner who I have to say behaved most graciously and thought a draw would be a fairer result. The generous comments made about their former club by Alan Mullery, David Stockdale and Aaron Hughes in the programme epitomised the good spirit in which the game was played. I do not recall one nasty incident although it was unwise of Bent to taunt the Fulham crowd after he scored the opener.

The first half was end to end stuff as the biggest crowd of the season witnessed an exciting contest in which both sides should have scored. Bent bringing down a long ball, scored a goal which was always coming although it took a deflection to beat Bettanelli. I did not feel we would defend the lead as Fulham had a lot of attacking capacity. Jack Grimmer was surging down the right and Christensen was making clever runs. From one of them he pulled the back for Rodallega to score with a powerful shot with no back lift. Alan and I thought this is how it would stay. The Fulham winner did have more than an element of good fortune as Ruiz’s shot was going wide when it struck Christensen to be diverted past Stockdale who was obviously covering the first shot. Colunga got himself sent off for two yellow cards.

The mood post match was rather dejected as we are now in the bottom three. We have too many loanees who are inevitably less committed to the cause. We need guys like Crofts and Greer who are Brigton through and through and I can’t see Hyppia motivating the team. I was impressed by some of Fulham’s youngsters: Bettanelli in goal, Grimmer at right back, Hyndman in midfield and above all Christensen who had a hand and foot in both goals. Alan was excited that a team that could have been sponsored by Help the Aged these last few seasons has so many youngsters in it but you still need an old head like Scott Parker to guide them.