The Tanner Report ; Cardiff 1 Fulham 2

Up and down the country crowds emphatically did not turn up for the Cup. At Cardiff the crowd was just over 5100. It was on Welsh TV at the unearthly hour of 11-30 on a Sunday which would not have helped as Cardiff fans could watch it on the telly and it was tough for Fulham fans to make it at all. After going one down when a free kick took a wicked deflection (why are all deflections wicked ? Can you have an innocent deflection?) we rallied and asserted ourselves to  run out 2-1 winners. We had 70% of the possession but only a one goal winning margin. This is a reflection of our season, possession and supremacy not turned into  goals. This is not helped by our principal striker Chris Martin being on strike as he now wants to return to Derby. We paid Derby £3m to have Martin on loan for the whole season and this should be the beginning and end of it. In my opinion to induce a player to break a contract- if  this happened – should be matter of investigation and penalty by the FA.

Fulham’s first goal was scored by Stefan Johansen, a midfielder acquired from Celtic with a huge reputation. He took a bit of time to settle but he is is an integral member of our midfield alongside Tom Cairney. He has energy, skill and the useful knack of scoring goals. We are not weak in this area with Scott Parker, Ryan Tunnicliffe, Christensen, but – with Kebano on Africa Cup duty – rumour has it that we are still seeking reinforcements in the window. We certainly need one, and probably two, strikers for Martin and Ayote – also out on duty. I was pleased that Marcus Bettanelli got a game in goal. I prefer him to regular David Button whose distribution is unreliable. We certainly have a big enough squad to go on a run without affecting our play-off ambitions. Such a run will please the fans and give a run out for other players. It happened before in our Europa Cup run when Roy Hodgson principally picked fringe players like Chris Baird in midfield and a young Chris Smalling in defence but a momentum developed and before you knew it we were playing and beating Juventus. There is also the excitement of the draw, one of the few features of the FA Cup not to be ruined in recent years. I still get tingles waiting for a Fulham’s number to come out of the hat. Inevitably my mind goes back to 1975 when Fulham broke the record for the number of games to get to the final at Wembley. We took massive support to Everton and Carlisle, then a top flight club, to the two semi-finals at Hillsborough and Maine Road as Cup fever swept over Fulham. We did reach a semi-final in the Tigana era against Chelsea but it was a dull game largely recalled for a horrendous car journey. It was played on a Sunday night at Villa Park rather than a London stadium. The 3 o’clock kick-off is a rarity and the travelling wishes of the fans – then and now – ignored.

I don’t have a magic solution to restore the prestige of the FA Cup. One might be for the Cup home games to be included in the season ticket price. One suggestion that will never happen is to afford the Cup winner Champions League status. According to Stefano, Italy who now only has 3 clubs in the Champions League will never agree to a reduction to 2 for Cup admittance. Sadly every initiative like changing the kick-off times has failed as the harsh reality is that there is too much at stake in losing Premier status or achieving a Champions League position to induce clubs to take the oldest Cup competition of all seriously.