Three defeats in the last three games, are the alarm bells starting to ring?
Following the departures of Dembele and Dempsey and the acquisition of Berbatov and Richardson, Fulham supporters would have been eager to see how the new-style Fulham shapes up.
Sadly, if the plan was to keep it tight in the first twenty minutes or so, the plan fell apart dramatically. With less than a minute gone, Fulham were behind after the new West Ham striker, Andy Carroll had combined well with Vaz Te for Nolan to drive home from inside the area.
Struggling to get back on terms, Fulham tried to test Jaaskelainen in the West Ham goal but the efforts were on the weak side with Richardson being foiled and Sidwell seeing a shot saved.
Matters went from bad to worse just before the thirty minute mark when West Ham doubled their lead. Riise had conceded a corner and when the ball was delivered into the box, Schwarzer came but couldn`t reach and Winston Reid headed home.
Looking to get to half time to reorganise, Martin Jol would have been horrified to see his defence fail to clear a free kick properly and when the ball fell to Taylor we were 3-0 down and out of the game.
Jol took off the ineffective Petric at half time and threw on Berbatov for his debut but West Ham were still on top with Schwarzer called upon to block a shot from Taylor.
Our hosts suffered a trio of injuries in a second half that, for the neutral, wasn`t as thrilling as the first with Carroll, Collins and Demel all departing the action.
Trying to get back into the game, Jol threw on Kacaniklic but Fulham only really started to threaten the West Ham goal in the dying seconds forcing Jaaskelainen to save well from both Duff and Rodallega.
A disappointing afternoon and Jol will have to get his troops to perform better in the coming games.
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