Match Details

Cooke

Reports

The day started badly when I gave Mick Horne someone else's mobile phone number rather than my own, so we still haven't met. Still, it's off to the Smoke, and I am jealous of those London Clarets. To recreate the atmosphere of our capital, stand in a concrete carpark getting a friend to point his car exhaust and you, and sporadically throw away handfuls of money.

Fulham's prematch entertainment was hosted by David "Diddy" Hamilton, as far as I could match out, and featured Mohamed Fayed with his bald crown glinting in the floodlights, and some "ironic" Fulham records from the 60s and 70s.

On a crisp clear(ish) night, Burnley (4-5-1/5-4-1) lined up as:

Crichton

Armstrong(c) Weller Thomas Cox Briscoe

Little Ball Cook Mullin

Cooke

Subs used: Branch (Cooke 61), Payton (Armstrong 67), Mellon (Mullin 74), Maylett, Jepson.

FREE KICK NUMBER ONE

The pattern of play was set early on: everybody except Cookie behind the ball. It took around 3 minutes for us to even touch it. Fulham's passing and movement is exceptional for this division, and their skill level high. Clark and Goldbaek in particular ran the show.

Even so, chances were not as plentiful as possession would have suggested. Although rings were run around the midfield the defence largely stood firm. The exception of once when Cox dawdled on the ball, then was blatantly obstructed by Hayles (who otherwise spent the evening with his right arm along, appealing). There were distance efforts from Goldbaek and Clark that I can remember.

When Burnley did get the ball, it was a real curate's egg of some lovely sweeping movement, mostly engineered by Little who revelled in a game like this, and hopeful hoofing from the centrebacks. Cooke was playing as the sole target and making a pretty good fist of it, but in the first half we only had one player (Weller) who had scored a league goal this season on the pitch.

In amongst all this came what's probably the flukiest goal I've ever seen Burnley score. A speculative Cook freekick walloped off THE BACKSIDE OF A FULHAM PLAYER and looped high and with exocet-like precision into the opposite corner of the goal to which Maik Taylor had been standing.

So, backs to the wall. The rest of the first half carried on in the same vein. With the combative nature of the midfield (ie. us chasing them) the tackles were flying in. The only booking though was baffling - Briscoe appeared to be carded for, well, being kicked by Saha. Uriah Rennie lookalike Trevor Parkes of Birmingham meanwhile turned down a good appeal for a penalty by Cooke in the second half, and a hilarious one from Hayles in the second.

Half time. A man wins 100 quid by kicking a ball through an oversized toilet seat attached to the crossbar, in a competition as classy as you would expect from the owner of Harrods. At least it beats the Swankypants Troupe.

FREE KICK NUMBER TWO

Same pattern as before. However Andy Cooke, defending halfway into his own half, mistimes a tackle on someone who throws himself a good 10 metres. Mr Parkes is overenthusiastic and sends Cooke off for a first offence! While everyone wonders why Cooke hasn't left the pitch, GOLDBAEK wallops an excellent free kick into the far corner, past Crichton who to my eye was poorly positioned. Oh, Cooke hasn't been sent off, the ref pulled the wrong card out of his pocket. Still, it's only a matter of time.

Paul Cook is shattered after an hour of running after Lee Clark trying to clog him, so is replaced by Branchy. The game opens up as the midfield tired, and there is possession at either end, before a revitalised Fulham rip through the midfield cover and whip the ball across to SAHA, who rockets it past Crichton at his near post.

To his credit Stan goes for the point rather than attempting damage limitation, and brings Natural Born Claret on for the bewildered Armstrong (who played well considering his last game was last season). NBC however rarely gets a look-in; it's Cooke who wins possession and has the Claret's only clearcut chance of the second half, and fails to really trouble Taylor when Payton is in a better position.

Then Briscoe finally does something warranting a booking and is sent off. From the resultant corner SAHA beats a marker who appears to be 2 feet shorter than him and heads the ball through Crichton. Game over, and I have to leave 7 minutes before full time, to sprint to the underground to catch the last train back to Cambridge.

SUMMING UP

Unlike the last shambles at Fulham, the players do come out from this with a fair bit of credit in my eyes. They out-fought the Cottagers for 50 minutes, and while it wasn't pretty it was effective. Certainly Fulham look too good for this division at the moment and were deserved winners, but Clarets performances like this will keep them up comfortably (I never thought I'd say that so early in the season).

Up the Clarets Steve

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