FULHAM, it has sadly to be said, flattered to deceive. All that pretty passing, that early promise, that opening goal, then a steadily increasing anti-climax. You began to understand how a team of so much talent, running away with the Nationwide First Division, had managed to lose on their own Craven Cottage ground to the likes of Preston and Birmingham.
The unthinkable so nearly happened when, after 86 minutes, Forest were awarded a much-disputed free kick and when Chris Bart-Williams eventually took it from 25 yards his shot crashed against the underside of the bar. Yes, Forest came as close as that.
Yet so much of Fulham's football for the first 25 minutes or so was as exciting as in the first half of their FA Cup tie against Manchester United. Louis Saha and Luis Boa Morte formed a devastatingly quick and penetrative front pairing. After 20 minutes, they combined to score what turned out to be the only goal of the game.
Boa Morte, who had such a tough time with Arsenal and Southampton and is now expected to return to his native Portugal and Lisbon's Benfica, set it up splendidly. Coming in from the left, he twisted and turned and eluded two Forest defenders, then sent over a ball which Saha could not fail to convert. At that stage, Forest had hardly been competing, though their shrewdly analytical manager, David Platt, insisted they
hadn't just come for a point.
Indeed, there was a warning for Fulham only five minutes after their goal when an error by their young midfielder, Sean Davis, led to a drive by David Johnson, one of the two Forest strikers, which was blocked. When the ball came out, Jim Brennan struck it, Maik Taylor, in the Fulham goal was well beaten, only for Andy Melville to clear off the line.
Platt told us that Forest had been working all week on how to counter Fulham's attacking play, with special reference to not allowing the strikers, David Johnson and Marlon Harewood, to be drawn back into their own half. In the first half, Platt felt his team got it only 80 per cent right, since when Fulham moved Bjarne Goldbaek from the right into the middle, Steve Finnan would come roaring down the right, obliging David Johnson to function almost as a left-back.
Just before half-time, there was another warning for Fulham, who had almost gone further ahead on the half- hour when Boa Morte burst through to have his shot blocked by the evergreen veteran Dave Beasant. But when Harewood sent in a speculative long shot from the left, Taylor had been lulled into such a false sense of security that he stood still while the ball bounced narrowly wide of the post.
The longer the second half went on the more ineffective Fulham seemed and the more the two Forest strikers with their pace and drive came into the game. To this, David Johnson added a formidably long throw which on one occasion, when the ball broke from the goal-mouth, enabled his namesake Andy Johnson to shoot narrowly wide.
Fulham began making substitutions. The first brought on Karlheinz Riedle, once the toast of Borussia Dortmund, a choice quickly justified when he got his head to Boa Morte's right-wing corner, forcing Beasant to plunge on the ball. Subsequently, even Saha was taken off. But still, Fulham were failing to penetrate an increasingly confident Forest defence.
Platt was probably entitled to say his team deserved a point and he is now optimistic that they can ultimately reach the play-offs. When Bart-Williams whacked that free kick against the bar, it emphasised how the tide had turned.
As Platt himself said, Fulham, for all their merits, will still have to strengthen this side when they reach the Premiership.
Fulham: Taylor, Finnan, Melville, Symons, Brevett, Goldbaek (Riedle 68min), Davis, Clark, Collins (Stolcers 80min), Saha (Moller 84min), Boa Morte
Nottingham Forest: Beasant, Edwards, Bart-Williams, Benali, Olsen, Jones (John 75min), Andy Johnson, Scimeca, Brennan, David Johnson (Williams 86min), Harewood
Scorers: Fulham: Saha 19
Referee: A Leake.