
The Premier League game between Fulham and Manchester United at Craven Cottage on Saturday Dec 19 2009.
Manchester United's pursuit of the Premier League title suffered a humiliating setback with a thrashing at Craven Cottage inspired by Bobby Zamora.
Danny Murphy opened the scoring from 30-yards, after capitalising on a mistake by Paul Scholes, and Zamora continued his rich vein of form with the second a minute after the interval.
Zamora - a menace all afternoon - then helped complete the rout by setting up the third for Damien Duff.
Fulham should have taken the lead in the 17th minute following a wonderful move started by Clint Dempsey.
The American floated in a long pass to Zamora who chested the ball down into the path of Zoltan Gera, but the Hungarian directed his shot too close to keeper Tomasz Kuszczak when he had the goal at his mercy.
Duff should have produced a better conclusion to one run into the box, but Fulham only had to wait until the 22nd minute to take the lead when they capitalised on an error by Scholes.
Darren Fletcher passed to Scholes but the former England midfielder was too slow in reacting, allowing Murphy to snatch the ball from his feet and fire a 30-yard shot into the net.
Zamora should have made it 2-0 but nodded Gera's precision cross wide from six yards out after doing the hard work in outjumping Fletcher.
United's problems deepened, though, just a minute into the second half when their patched-up defence was exposed once more as Fulham extended their lead.
Duff supplied the cross to the far post where Dempsey was able to deflect the ball into the path of Zamora who fired home from close range.
In desperate need of inspiration, a lacklustre United brought on Dimitar Berbatov for Darren Gibson and switched to a three-pronged strike force.
Needing a third goal to kill off United, who were showing tentative signs of a fightback, Duff obliged in the 75th minute.
The visitors failed to clear their lines allowing Zamora to set-up Duff, who smashed the ball home from 15 yards out.
Delirious Fulham fans chanted "we want four, we want four" and Zamora would have given it to them had Kuszczak not made a superb late save.
No comments:
Post a Comment