OK, Now I'm Worried

Yesterday afternoon at Upton Park started well and then went downhill....fast. The first two home matches both ended in defeat (to Tottenham and Liverpool) but the performances were good and I felt we deserved at least a point against both.

Yesterday Fulham were the visitors. A side, like us, in the bottom 3 and on paper one that we ought to have beaten comfortably. We looked bright enough at the start, although I felt Hines didn't give the same level of performance that he had done against Liverpool. We did take the lead after 16 minutes after a Diamanti free kick from the right was header powerfully into the top corner at the near post by Carlton Cole.

While Andrew Johnson did show brief flashes of perhaps being able to get Fulham back into the game they offered little else. Then with 5 minutes to go before half time an off the ball incident resulted in a red card for Fulham's debutante midfielder Dikgacoi. Half time came and we looked at the table and tried to work out how high we'd move up with the win that was inevitable now.

As the players re-emerged for the second half Fulham replaced Johnson and it seemed any hope for them getting anything from the match was gone. Hmmmmmmm. Within a minute of the re-start Fulham got a penalty and were level. To me the challenge was a 50:50. Upson and Kamara tussled for the ball and both went down. Neither was at fault, but these things usually go in favour of the defender and when the ref whilstled I assumed that was what was happening. When he pointed to the spot I was gobsmacked. Seeing it on TV later I still can't see how it was a penalty.

OK, so back at parity but we still have the extra man against a side we were better than in a first half when they had 11. It'd be alright. No it bloody wouldn't! 10 minutes later Green came for a corner and didn't get there leaving Gera a fairly simple tap in. Disaster.

We then looked a bit devoid of ideas and urgency. There was little creativity and the spectre of relegation (yes, even in October) was very real, and hovvering over us. This just wasn't good enough. The players we have are capable of so much more, but they must start showing it. And soon.

In injury time we got lucky. Finally when we got a shot away we got something. Stanislas's drive was deflected past the helpless Schwarzer saving us a point with a 2-2 draw that we really didn't deserve. Even so, 1 point from 9 at home is nowhere near good enough and leaves us in the relegation zone (albeit with a big pack within a win from us).

The fixtures coming up look daunting. The next 6 visitors to Upton Park are Arsenal, Aston Villa, Everton, Burnley, Man Utd then Chelsea. It wouldn't be a surprise of we only picked up another 4 or 5 points from that lot. We are gonna need one hell of a run in at home to repair the damage that could get done in the next couple of months.

The one thing might be that we do tend to raise our game against the bigger teams when they come calling. We need to!