Fulham beat Newcastle United in last night’s Premier League match at the Craven Cottage with 2:1 and secured vital 3 points for this year’s Premier League campaign.
Fulham was 7 games without a victory, but was relieved about Brede Hangeland’s return after the Fulham captain missed the last 3 games because of his red card against Sunderland. Newcastle entered the game with confidence after a win against Wigan the week before. However, Newcastle is still 14th in the league and it is important to collect point upcoming weeks.
Fulham started the game well especially with the trio Sidwell, Berbatov and Rodallega. All three of them were always dangerous and Sidwell dominated the midfield behind the two forwards. Alan Pardew’s side sat deep at the beginning and broke away with counter attacks every once in awhile. However, Demba Ba was too isolated in attack. Sidwell scored the opener in the 19th minute with a deflected shot. Newcastle got stronger after the 1:0 and Cisse and Ba started to create some chances for United. Ben Arfa scored an amazing equalizer in the 54th minute with a great dipping shot over Schwarzer from 25 yards – 1:1! However, Rodallega put Fulham back in the lead just 9 minutes later with a header from close range – 2:1 Fulham and the 25,000 at the Craven Cottage went wild. Alan Pardew tried everything to at least secure a draw. He brought on Sh Ameobi in the 70th minute, but he took of Ben Arfa, the best player for Newcastle until then. Newcastle wasn’t able to put enough pressure on Fulham without Ben Arfa and lost important points. Fulham secured their first win in seven games.
Fulham Manager Martin Jol said: “It was a vital win. If you lose this game you get in a depression and we didn’t want that. It wasn’t easy, although if you look at the chances we had we should have finished it off a lot earlier.”
Fulham’s next match is against west London rivals Queens Park Rangers on Saturday. Newcastle will play Manchester City at St. James Park on Saturday, December 15th.
