For the first 10 minutes, Fulham looked like there would walk the game, but in truth, passed the ball very nicely up to the point of needing to take a shot on goal, where they were largely ineffective.  Then Van Damme got an unlikely goal for Wolves from a lovely ball by Doyle.  After that, Fulham still looked like they’d walk the game, but still they couldn’t get the goal, and Wolves gradually came into the match.

Before the match I stated my doubt about Van Damme as an attacking threat.  More fool me, because he had a good first half, with the goal to prove it.  His substitution for Fletcher in the second half did not help the team defensively, and ultimately did not come off, with Wolves conceeding within 5 minutes of the restart.  It was not a good goal to let in, but the second was worse.  For Berra to give away the free kick in the first place in the 91st minute was silly, for the ‘wall’ to completely abdicate it’s responsibility to stay together and try and get in the way of the ball was ridiculous.  Most people learn lessons the hard way, so let’s hope there’s one learned here: Don’t jump unless the ball is going over your heads, and don’t jump apart.  Perhaps someone can write that down.

So, we left Craven Cottage disappointed by the nature of the defeat, if not with any real argument with the scoreline.  The positives were that Doyle looked much sharper, Foley much more in control, and Jarvis very good in patches.  Ebanks-Blake worked hard, and we pulled together a few decent attacks.  On the negative, Mancienne did not have a very impressive return and all in all we punted and lost the ball far too much, giving away possession and letting Fulham pass the ball forward through the midfield with ease at times.  Hahnemann had an amazing season last year but made a few poor decisions today again.

A lot of the post match talk has – again – been about Wolves being, to use one of the politer descriptions ‘over-physical’.  I understand the Fulham fans may have sung something along these lines (probably not ‘Wolves – they’re over-physical’, however: I don’t know what exactly, because personally all I heard from their end all game was ‘You’re not singing anymore’.  Ok, and ‘Come on Fulham’, once).  Anyhow, I digress.  Seven yellow cards, one red does not look good. However, I defended the team last week and will continue to do so for as long as it’s true – whatever the stats say, Wolves did not play dirty.

It’s wasn’t shocking to see Berra sent off, as he’s too regularly to be seen with his arms around the opposition, but that’s more stupidity that bullying.  It was bad to see Zamora’s injury under a tackle from Henry, and I wish him a swift recovery, but no one can seriously argue that was anything other than very unfortunate.  The majority of the other yellows were debatable but, whatever the case, we’re going the way of getting a very bad reputation with referees and opposing fans. There’s nothing that can be done about that, however, except continue to try and play strong but fair (in Berra’s case, today, I’m placing the emphasis here on ‘try’ – try not to be so clumsy would be another good bit of advice for a number of players.)

Next up Spurs away: three points last time around.

So Kightly didn’t live up to the hype, but should get a little time to play himself back into form. Ebanks-Blake looked stronger and had a couple of near misses. Hennessey continued his impressive early season form – for me a significant improvement in terms of judgement from last season (now cue jaw dropping Calamity James moment vs Villa). Zubar looked like he might have been worth the money afterall. Doyle was fantastic and made his route one goal very easy, although I’m sure a few could have missed it. Henry was solid, and Edwards continues to impress me greatly with his hard work, if not always finesse. Craddock and Berra will have won over – or perhaps kept – plenty of fans, again having very good games. The only real weak link, sadly, was Elokobi. He’s strong and has his moments, but the curse of the inconsistient left back seems to continue.

And let’s spare a thought for Stefan Maierhofer who, I accept, came on with a lot to prove and some heavy tackles but managed to pick up two yellow cards while his opponents got off with, on the first occasion grabbing his foot as he stood up to walk away, and on the second, grabbing his neck as he walked away. Both bookable offences in their own right, surely.