Pain-Ful lesson (From This Is Local London)

Pain-Ful lesson

11:29am Wednesday 5th January 2005 in

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Fulham 3
Cole 4, 60, Radzinski 74
Crystal Palace 1
Johnson 34 pen

A poor second half performance by Palace handed Fulham the points at Craven Cottage in the New Year's Day derby clash.

An Andrew Cole double, plus a goal from Tomasz Radzinski, cancelled out Andrew Johnson's equaliser as Palace struggled to cope with Fulham's pacey attack.

Dowie said: "I am at a loss really to explain the manner of our second half display but we haven't got too much time before our next game to reflect.

"It's been a great 2004 for the club but what shapes our destiny is between now and May 2005 and the lads know the level of performance which is required but that wasn't there today."

Former Manchester United man Cole got the Cottagers off to a dream start when he scored Fulham's opener in the fourth minute after neat work by Radzinski.

Tom Soares then missed a great chance to equalise when he headed over from three yards.

The recalled Tony Popovic headed a Routledge freekick across goal but the Palace youngster couldn't quite direct it on target.

Andrew Johnson again came close for Palace in the 31st minute when he connected with Granville's delightful left wing cross but again couldn't direct the ball towards goal.

But Palace did not have to wait long to find a breakthrough when Johnson was cut down by van der Sar inside the Fulham box and converted the resulting penalty for his 11th of the season. Palace were on top at the break, but failed to build on their dominance as Fulham came out firing in the second half.

Cole put his side ahead on 60 minutes with a well taken individual goal; he twisted and turned inside the Palace box and toe-poked the ball past Kiraly.

The Fulham captain should have claimed his hat-trick minutes later when he blazed over and then Kiraly denied him with his feet.

Radzinski made the game safe in the 74th minute when Malbranque was allowed space to waltz towards the Palace goal. After Cole mis-kicked his cross, Radzinski was there to make it three.

MATCH STATS
MAN OF THE MATCH
Wayne Routledge Terrorised Bocanegra is the first half and put in some telling crosses. Never stopped running and only source of creativity in the second half.
PALACE: Kiraly 6, Butterfield 6, Popovic 5, Hall 6, Granville 5, Routledge 8, Riihilahti 6 (Torghelle 65 5), Soares 7, Lakis 6 (Andrews 79 5), Johnson 7, Hughes 7 (Leigertwood 64 5). Subs Not Used: Speroni, Boyce.

Fulham PALACE 6 On Target 3 6 Off Target 4 11 Fouls 18 1 Yellow Cards 3 0 Red Cards 0