Craven Collapse

Fulham 2 - Manchester United 2
Scorers
Fulham: Davies (57), Hangeland (89)
Manchester United: Scholes (11), Hangeland (og 84)

Team: Van der Sar, Vidic, Evans, O'Shea, Evra, Fletcher, Scholes, Valencia (Giggs 74), Park (Nani 67), Bebatov, Hernandez (Owen 74)

Sigh, we just can't win at Craven Cottage. I suppose this is a marked improvement from our last 2 visits. This time we took the lead twice, and even with the intervention of Mr OwnGoal, we still couldn't take all three points.

Nani missed a crucial penalty when we were 2-1 up at the 87th minute and all hell broke loose after. To be really fair to Fulham, it was never a penalty to begin with. The ball struck Duff on the arm while he was trying to clear it. It wa a handball, but with absolutely no intent, nor did he even know about it. It's about as harsh a penalty given. Yet given the opportunity to seal the victory for United, Nani fluffed his lines and his penalty was driven away by the outstanding stand-in keeper for Schwarzer, David Stockdale.

On the other end, Hangeland made amends for his own goal and rose the highest to head home the equalizer, robbing us of 2 points. Credit to Fulham, who made a real fight out of it, especially from the way we started this game.

Right from the off, we came out blazing, before Scholes broke the deadlock with his 150th for the club. Berbatov could have had a brace but Stockdale was simply outstanding, making two almost point blank saves.

The game then mired into a bit of to and fro-ing with Fulham causing problems with Zamora really troubling Evand and Vidic. And on the other end, we always looked like scoring.

Fulham's first equalizer came from Simon Davies after some really good play from Duff. Van der Sar would be really disappointed that the ball still managed it's journey into the net after he had a good amount of palm to Davies' strike.

As the game wore into the final third, United started to pile on the pressure. Nani's introduction gave United the extra width and we exploited it to devastating effect, bombarding a stretched Fulham defence with crosses. Nani's 84th corner finally found the breakthru that we were so desperately craving. Hangeland was at the wrong place at the wrong time when the ball struck him and bisected both Davies and Stockdale on the line and into the net.

Then Duff 'handled' the ball and Nani missed the spotkick. Hangeland then scored the equalizer.

It's a bit disappointing to come away with a draw, especially with our rivals smashing their opponents. Then again, they have to visit Craven Cottage. We can only hope that Fulham will show the same amount of tenacity they showed today. But we shouldn't be doubting any team managed by Mark Hughes. Like the man himself, I'm sure Fulham's going to make things difficult for anyone on their day.

Just a couple of comments I wanna make:

Gallas
From my well chronicle hatred of Sol Campbell, this one seems mild to me. Actually there's only apathy for me in this instance. Sol is a different animal altogether. Sol is born and bred Spurs, and he knowingly joined Arsenal having lived in England all his life and knowing the deep resentment between both sets of fans, especially the Spurs fans, who honestly haven't got much to cheer about until recently. Even then, they are the petty sort, just the type of fans you generally love to hate, coz they are so damn knowledgeable too (I should know, I have a Spurs-loving cousin).

Whereas for Gallas, I never really viewed him as an Arsenal player. He never really fit into Arsenal. His teammates hate him. He hates his teammates. Hell, the only reason he signed for Arsenal, besides being deadweight in the Assly Cole deal, was to spike Chelsea. Total dick in my opinion, but a totally different dick from Sol.

Goals
Wtf? Has the Premiership gone goal crazy? More importantly even at this early stage, can anyone stop Chelsea? Granted their opponents are relegation fodder, still 6 goals twice is nothing to sneeze at. Then there's six for Arsenal and more inexplicably 6 for Newcastle, a team we comprehensively beat last week. And more astonishingly, they did it against Villa! These couple of weeks are pretty weird. Wonder when our turn in the sun will happen.