Fulham edged it this afternoon in a tense affair at Craven Cottage.
Martin Jol, not having ha to select a side since we drew with Chelsea in what seems like an eternity ago, made two changes from that starting eleven with Senderos coming in for the injured Kelly and a fit again Pogrebnya replacing Frei. Andrew Johnson, back from a thigh injury was on the bench.
Fulham started brightly and had an early appeal for a penalty turned down after Dempsey tanged with Caldwell. Riise, earned a free kick, courtesy of a challenge from Boyce and with the majority of our attack waiting for a cross, Murphy slide the ball square to Duff, who had peeled back from being in the area, but, sadly, Duff`s shot was too high and cleared the bar.
Wigan were having plenty of possession but creating little with their only threat so far being a shot from Moses that Schwarzer easily coped with. Searching for the opening goal, Duff was thwarted, as Fulham attacked down the left, by a decent interception by Beausejour.
Duff then played a good one-two with Diarra but shot wide whilst Wigan were reduced to a long rage shot, from, Gomez, that flew well wide. On the stroke of half time Schwarzer was forced to make his first real save of note scrambling away an effort from Gomez who was starting to come more and more into the game.
Half Time – Fulham 0 Wigan 0
Lee Mason infuriated the home crowd early in the second half when he refused to give a foul on Demspey as he raced through whilst and early incident between Dembele and Figueroa saw some facial claret shed.
Wigan started to come into the game with Gomez unleashing a shot that hit the side-netting before Figueroa shot wide from well placed. Respite for Fulham was brief though when Boyce struck a thunderbolt of a shot into the net after the ball rebounded back to him of Sammon
But Fulham were behind for seconds when Dembele and Pogrebnyak combined and the Russian scored with a splendid low shot into the bottom corner. Riise continued the assault skipping past Moses and when his ball found the head of Pogrebnyak his shot crashed against the underside of the bar did it bounce over the line?
Riise drilled a low free kick that Al Habsi got down well to save. Pogrebnyak then hit the woodwork for the second time when a shot hit the base of the post. Pushing for the winner, Duff`s cross hit Senderos and trickled just inches wide.
Frei was introduced to try to open a way through a Wigan side that now looked to be settling for a draw. But the second goal was to come from an unlikely source when a Senderos header put Fulham 2-1 up with one minute of normal time left.
With four minutes of stoppage time to play Wigan were unable to create that chance to get back on level terms and the header from Senderos was to prove the difference between the two sides.
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