Well all things considered it could have been worse. Much worse. Here's a link to the highlights as always. You'll have to watch a commercial about oral hygiene, but such is life. I went into this match with pretty low expectations. After all Fulham are a good side with a great manager, and they beat Blackburn (who we lost to by 2 goals last weekend) by 3 goals last midweek.
By all accounts Bolton were by far the second team, doing quite a bit of defending at Craven Cottage. The statistics confirm: Fulham- 18 shots (5 on target, Bolton- 4 shots (1 on target). Jussi made 4 saves, while Schwarzer made 0, Fulham had 65% of the possession, leaving Bolton with a mere 35%. Can't really argue with that can you?
On a more positive note, we actually defended well for what is probably the first time all season. There were three goal line clearances (two by Steinsson and one by Taylor) and generally Fulham didn't look threatening in the final third (OK I know it's a little generous to attribute that to our defenders, but hey, we Wanderers need something). Now if only both the defense and the midfield could get their acts together at the same time we'd have a proper team!
Steinsson, who I thought was one of our best players last season but has been curiously looked over quite a bit this season, had a good game. He really is key to bringing our defense together and organizing the back four. Jussi also did his part for keeping out goals by making absolutely superb saves.
My highlight of the match: our little Croatian's goal. Not only is it a rather rare occurance these days, but the strike from Klasnic was gorgeous. A wonderfully controlled ball that was never going anywhere but the back of the net. And he had one of the strangest goal celebrations I've ever seen. If you weren't going to watch the highlights, then you should just for this. At 40 seconds into the video Klasnic runs away from his scene of victory, only to drop to his hands and knees and crawl on the ground. Tamir Cohen decides this is a good time to have a backwards hug (pictured above), however due to the hands and knees nature of the celebration it looks like they are doing something quite different. I definitely laughed for like a minute straight. I know, I'm pretty mature.
Well I think that's all I have to say. Sorry if this post is a bit disjointed, I had my blood drawn today and am still a bit lightheaded. I will probably be around midweek with a news round up!