Catt's The Man...

...But not without the help of Schwarzer.

Fulham 1 - 2 BORO

Boro clinched their first 3 points of the season today away at Fulham in an action packed game of injuries, disallowed goals and ridiculous amounts of added time.

The home side started the game quick and immediately mounted pressure against a Yakubu-less Boro team, but Boro weathered the early storm and started creating some chances of their own with new signing Mido making an impressive debut start.

Something you don't see every week was that the match referee Lee Mason had to be substituted early on, making way for 4th official Andy D'Urso.

Mido and Tuncay started today's game in the attacking positions and Mido immediately showed that he is going to be a major player at the Boro. He went about the pre-match warm up with incredible maturity and positivity, leading the players and encouraging the team throughout and he carried his attitude onto the field.

Unfortunately for Boro fans, Fulham took the lead after 16 minutes when captain Brian McBride capitalised on some sloppy defending. However he sustained an injury in scoring the goal and had to be stretchered off to a round of applause from the home crowd.

Boro mounted a surge just before the break with Mido and Tuncay rousing the rest of the team to a positive end to the first half, which was extended by an incredible 6 minutes following the injuries to the referee and to McBride.

Tuncay was removed at half time and replaced with fellow new boy Jeremie Aliadiere who made an instant impact with Mido in helping Boro to be the better team of the second half.


Ten minutes into the second period Mido made Fulham keeper, Tony Warner, pay for a dreadful mistake by bagging his first Boro goal and giving his new team the equaliser.
Fulham constantly made chances to retake the lead but the Boro defence remained strong with Andrew Davies leading the back line and keeper Mark Schwarzer putting in a good display.

However Davies nearly gave Gareth Southgate a further defensive nightmare as Clint Dempsey lead into Davies face with an elbow, flooring the right back for several minutes. But Davies recovered and jumped back into action as Fulham looked to take 3 points.

Jeremie Aliadiere was presented a fantastic chance for his first Boro goal after Julio Arca showed great vision to play the ball through to Aliadiere, who was on side. But the Frenchman's pace got the better of him as he took a heavy touch around keeper, Warner, before fouling the defender attempting to take advantage of the chance.

A worry for Boro came when Mido, Boro's clear man of the match, seemed to twist his ankle and had to be replaced by Dong Gook Lee, though Mido later played down the injury live on BBC Radio Tees, saying "No, I'll be alright. It will be alright". Dong Gook Lee himself only lasted 20 minutes before he was substituted for Seb Hines as Southgate looked to defend the draw.

Warner made up for his earlier blunder when Boro defender David Wheater pulled off an outstanding control and bicycle kick which the keeper had to dive to push around the post.
Clint Dempsey was then presented with the best chance of the game when he some how managed to steer wide his shot from less than 5 yards, as goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer was beaten.

Then, 2 minutes before the end of normal time, Aliadiere mirrored the early pass to him from Arca by laying up the ball for young midfielder Lee Cattermole who took the shot first time and slotted the ball past Tony Warner, much to the delight of the Boro bench and the fans.

- Schwarzer
Fulham should have taken a point from the game as a late effort from David Healey, deep into the 5 minutes of injury time, was ruled by the referee not to have crossed the line as Mark Schwarzer scrambled the ball away. The linesman confirmed the referee's decision, but replays show that Boro were lucky as the ball had clearly crossed the line and would, undoubtedly, have been given had Schwarzer not reacted as quickly as he did to scramble the ball away from the goal.