Fulham crash out of the FA Cup courtesy of a first half Bolton strike from Klasnic.
Mark Hughes selected a strong starting eleven for this fixture with only Damien Duff failing to make the normal eleven; Zoltan Gera took his place in midfield. On the bench, was the familiar and very welcome figure, of Bobby Zamora back after suffering a broken leg earlier in the season.
Fulham started well with the Bolton keeper, Adam Bogdan, forced to save with his feet from Moussa Dembele. The next decent chance came when the Bolton keeper flapped at a deflected Salcido cross but Clint Dempsey could only screw his effort wide of the post.
Against the run of play and with nineteen minutes completed, Bolton took the lead through Ivan Klasnic when he latched on to a ball from Fabrice Muamba to lash a volley, from twelve yards, past Mark Schwarzer.
The Bolton goal seemed to knock the stuffing out of Fulham, Schwarzer received a bloody nose after a clash with Kevin Davies and the remainder of the half saw a midfield battle that Bolton just about edged.
Half Time – Fulham 0 Bolton 1
The second forty-five minutes saw Fulham struggle to create any clear-cut chances in the opening exchanges although the action did hot-up when Chris Baird thrust his hand into the face of Martin Petrov. Thankfully, the referee (Stuart Atwell) showed some leniency and only showed a yellow card.
Bolton had a good chance to make it 2-0 when Petrov put through Davies but Baird did exceedingly well to block the strikers` effort. With just over a quarter of the match to go Bobby Zamora was introduced to huge cheers from the Craven Cottage faithful.
Schwarzer showed some good keeping skills to deny Klasnic and keep Fulham in it. As the game edged towards a conclusion, Bogdan did well to save a snap-shot from Zamora.
Fulham, knowing their FA Cup chances were pushing forward in numbers and Demspey was the latest to see an effort blocked.
With four minutes of stoppage time declared Murphy saw Bogdan save his shot but Fulham couldn`t get that vital goal that would force a replay and our cup dreams were over for another season.
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