|
Bruce opted to restore Stan Lazaridis to the side with Darryl Powell dropping out, and Geoff Horsfield came in for a rare start with Clinton Morrisson being rested.
Bruce's side made a bright side against Jean Tigana's men, and won a succession of early corners, one of which came about from a good Horsfield effort which was saved by Dutch goalkeeper Edwin Van Der Sar.
Blues continued to dominate proceedings, and felt that they should have been 1-0 up midway through the half when Darren Purse rolled the ball into the net. However, the goal was ruled out for offside. Purse himself was never in an offside position, and whilst others might have been, surely the 'interfering with play' rule could be brought into question.
About 10 minutes before the interval, the tide really turned the way of the home side. Lazaridis drove across a corner which Horsfield glanced towards the far corner. Rufus Brevett turned the ball past the post, but referee Matt Messias adjudicated that he had done so with his hand. Brevett was sent off, and Blues were awarded a spot kick. Up stepped Stern John, who had converted Blues' only other penalty of the season at Goodison Park. This time, however, John's tame effort was parried away by Van Der Sar and Horsfield failed to capitalise on the rebound. Just three years ago Van Der Sar was regarded as the best 'keeper in Europe when at Juventus. Such penalties are hardly likely to trouble him.
The penalty miss had a negative effect on Blues who lost all of their momentum, and struggled to penetrate a Fulham defence that now had Luis Boa Morte - who had started the game up front - playing as a left back. Surely this was an opportunity for Paul Devlin to attack this weakness, but Devlin's continual insistence to come deep to collect the ball is completely undermining the kind of form we saw early on in the season. Throughout the first two months of the season, Devlin was a threat because of his lack of inhibitions at this level. Now it seems he is content to ply his trade as a wing back in front of Olivier Tebily (much as Jon McCarthy did in front of Gary Rowett) and consequently his threat is diminished, as any attacking runs he makes come from inside his own half, and he is posed with not just the left back, but the left sided midfielder too.
The half time break was what Blues needed, to gather their thoughts and compose themselves for a second half onslaught on depleted Fulham's goal. Blues did indeed come out brightly after the break, with Robbie Savage at the centre of everything, making attacking run after attacking run, and chasing back to the bargain too. From a rare accurate Devlin cross, Purse managed to hit Van Der Sar with a header from close range as Blues continued to plug away.
|
Blues were now faced with a Fulham side playing a rigid 4-4-0 formation. The visitors had no intention of even attempting an attack, and simply hoofed the ball forward at every opportunity to kick-start another Blues attack. In such a situation, it is imperative that the side with the advantage look to take men out of the game. As such, rather than playing the ball amongst themselves in front of the disadvantaged side, you should look to a defender to carry the ball as far forward as possible, before drawing a man, so that you can then lay the ball off, and have taken the player you have drawn to you out of the game. Blues, however, opted to play passes in front of the two Fulham lines of four, until substitute Bryan Hughes came to fetch the ball to try and kick start an attack.
Blues had their second goal disallowed late on, when the other two substitutes, Jovan Kirovski and Morrisson were involved. The former had a shot which the latter headed past Van Der Sar, only for that too to be ruled out for offside. Blues continued to win corner after corner, and another criticism would be that when you have only 8 outfield players against you, if you send a man out to the corner taker for a short corner, the opposition then have to send two men out to counter any threat. Consequently you are left with just six defenders in the middle against as many as eight attackers. Blues didn't do this except for one corner either. With the likes of Zat Knight and Alain Goma defending too (a combined height of about 13 feet), then the looped corner is rendered even more ineffective.
Whilst Blues probably had 65-70% of the possession, their inability to break down 10 - and then 9 - men from a struggling side was embarassing. Fulham were intent on getting the draw from the second that Brevett was sent off, but that shouldn't disguise the fact that Blues were clueless as to how to break them down. Fulham's reduction in numbers was probably the worst thing that could have happened, as Blues were dictating proceedings prior to the dismissals, and Fulham were still looking to attack, rather than shut up shop, so they were perhaps more vulnerbale. Even so, this should be no excuse for Blues failing to capitalise on a huge advantage given to them, and these dropped couple of points could really come home to haunt us later in the season. Most Blues fans would have settled for 4 points from Fulham at home and Sunderland away. Now the players have to perform up on Wearside next week to try and make that happen.