Fulham verdict: Andersen below par, Loftus-Cheek unlucky again, Parker must be braver
Fulham lost 1-0 to Tottenham and stay in the bottom three – but it was the new interpretation of handball that cost them a point.
Josh Maja thought he had equalised Tosin’s after own goal – at least for 30 seconds.
But VAR decided otherwise.
A player with his back to the action gets the ball hit at him from two yards. Mario Lemina in this case.
It hits his arm down by his side, and rebounds into the path of Maja who buried it emphatically into the corner.
Great goal? Sadly, no.
Forget ‘intent’ and forget ‘accidental’ – remember those?
Under the letter of the new law, a ball hitting an arm, no matter how innocuous or blameless, leading to a scoring chance is handball – regardless, as VAR confirmed. Ridiculous.
In the first half, the ball clearly came off the arm of Pierre-Emile Højbjerg and that should have been a Fulham corner.
But dear old VAR won’t deal with injustices amounting to piffling corners: only penalties.
To borrow from Charles Dickens: If that’s the law, then the law is an ass.
Scott Parker talks about going for wins – but he’s more belt and braces than that.
Ever the defensive midfielder, the head coach won’t relinquish that shape in the middle third forcing just one-out-and-out forward, if we’re not counting the support role that was Ivan Cavaleiro.
Perhaps he’s worried Aleksandar Mitrovic won’t last the course if he bungs him on with Maja from the start.
But who knows what could happen?
Fulham could take the lead, for a start.
Then, he could ease back on the throttle and bring on those to hang on to what we hold.
There’s lots of good things about Parker the coach, but adventure is not one of them.
Therefore, it’s no great surprise there has been so many draws, at least until this game.
Lemina’s miss proves costly
What can you say about Mario Lemina’s miss in the final seconds of the first 45?
Actually, you can say he’s not the first in white this season to sky over from a few yards when hitting the target would have been easier.
Cavaleiro did so against West Ham and cost Fulham two points, but you don’t get anything for good efforts.
Lemina had even more of the goal to aim at. A side-foot straight at Hugo Lloris, even if had been on target, would have been easy pickings to France’s keeper.
Head down, and laces through it, and no one would have stopped it.
Head up, as in Lemina’s case, and it flew into the Hammersmith End.
Just how many times will a Fulham player put his head in his hands before his club is relegated?
Andersen off-colour
Joachim Andersen had a mixed first half.
In fact, it was his headless running that led to the Spurs winner.
As Fulham pushed up there was a Grand Canyon between the Dane and Ola Aina as Tottenham threaded one through the centre.
Even so, with the ball pushed left, Andersen decided inexplicably that two were needed on the same side, thus exposing another massive gap in the centre.
Poor Tosin was the fall guy to get the own-goal touch, but Andersen’s positioning demands scrutiny.
He made partial amends with a decent header that brought a decent tip over from Lloris in the second 45, and looked far more assured with a range of passes – but the damage was done.
No luck for Ruben again
Ruben Loftus-Cheek was having a very good game.
Had he been substituted two minutes before he was on 64 minutes, he would have deservedly got a virtual round of applause.
Brave, driving runs, tackling back, decent passes – the only thing missing was a goal.
And then there was a chance on the left of the penalty area. The tiniest mis-control from RLC was all Davinson Sánchez needed to get the ball away.
Less than a minute later, Loftus-Cheek couldn’t believe he had space on the edge of the box, lots of it by this game’s standards.
A second later, the masked steward couldn’t believe he had to fetch the subsequent high-and-mighty blast from RLC that nestled in row Z of the Putney End.
When are the Chelsea loanee and Fulham going to get the rub of the green?
