Fulham 1 Wycombe Wanderers 0
Fulham needed a man who learnt his trade in the Nationwide Conference to break the hearts of Wycombe Wanderers last night.
Barry Hayles, who served his time with Stevenage Borough before joining Bristol Rovers and then Fulham, scored the decisive goal as the FA Barclaycard Premiership club finally overcame their Nationwide League second division opponents to take their place in the fourth round of the FA Cup, sponsored by AXA.
Lawrie Sanchez’s Wycombe players may have fallen short of replicating last season’s miraculous run to the last four of the competition, but they can still take courage from their performances, after a 2-2 draw at Adams Park in the first match, against a team costing £29 million more than theirs.
Hayles leads the scoring charts this season with nine goals for a team who can now look forward — if that is the appropriate term — to a visit to York City.
Wycombe were reduced to ten men for the final quarter of an hour of a rumbustious encounter when Jason Cousins, a survivor of their triumphant non-league days, was dismissed for a second bookable offence when he tackled Hayles from behind.
Christian Damiano, Fulham’s assistant manager, was critical of Wycombe’s robust approach. He said that Louis Saha, who had to be substituted in the twentieth minute after a challenge from Chris Vinnicombe, had broken his nose and will miss Saturday’s Premiership game away to Sunderland.
“Today the game was bad,” Damiano said. “When you play a team who has five yellow cards and one red, and Louis Saha has a nose broken, it is difficult. They were too physical. You have to ask what is their objective?” Saha was set to run clean through on goal from the halfway line when Vinnicombe attempted to hook the ball away. The striker bowed his head in an attempt to nod the ball forward and it was then that Vinnicombe’s boot caught his face. “When the forward takes a kick in the face and it is from the last defender, he has to have a red card,” Damiano said. “When he doesn’t, it gives him another chance.”
Fulham made heavy weather of breaking down Wycombe’s massed ranks. In the first period the Premiership side were restricted in the main to longer-range efforts, but the difference between the sides was evident from a glance at the substitutes’ bench. Jean Tigana, the Fulham manager, introduced an £11.5 million replacement for Saha in Steve Marlet; Sanchez brought on a £100,000 winger from Swansea City in Stuart Roberts when he reshuffled his pack.
Four minutes before the interval, Rufus Brevett was cautioned for diving when he fell under Vinnicombe’s challenge when attempting to run on to Hayles’s return pass. In the ensuing mêlée, Steve Brown was cautioned. The temperature increased further when Jermaine McSporran curled a teasing 20-yard shot over Fulham’s crossbar as the home crowd began to voice their frustration.
Yet, just as memories stirred of how Wycombe, having drawn at home to Wimbledon in last season’s fifth round, prevailed away from their own patch, Fulham scored the decisive goal. With 68 minutes gone, Hayles pounced when Brown dawdled on the ball deep in his own territory. The Fulham forward took possession, turned Mark Rogers on the edge of the penalty area and drilled a clinical low shot beyond the dive of Martin Taylor in the Wycombe goal.
If it had previously been an uphill struggle for a team who only 12 years ago were playing on the notorious sloping pitch of Loakes Park, then Wycombe’s task was now tantamount to impossible. Taylor, their goalkeeper, made three marvellous saves from Marlet, twice, and Hayles as Fulham finally found their swagger.
Terry Gibson, the Wycombe assistant manager, was proud of a team that remains in contention for a place in the play-offs. “I feel just the same as when we got beaten by Liverpool last year,” he said. “We rallied, we worked so hard and from our point of view it was an unfortunate goal to give away. Yet for an hour we restricted them to long-range efforts and when you come to a Premiership ground, the idea is to nullify them. We learnt that from the Wimbledon game last year when we tried to play it against them and went 2-0 down. We took our lessons from that and the players have done the club proud.”
Tigana refused to shake hands with the Wycombe management team after a tie that epitomised the raw appeal of the FA Cup. This was scheduled to be the last night game at Craven Cottage in its present antiquated state, before they depart for pastures new next season.
If they cannot counter-act the methods of highly motivated lower-division opponents, however, York may yet have something to say about that.
FULHAM (4-4-2):
M Taylor 6 — S Finnan 5, A Melville 6, A Goma 6, R Brevett 4 — S Davis 4, Z Knight 4 (sub: A Stolcers, 67min 5), S Malbranque 7, L Boa Morte 5 — B Hayles 7, L Saha (sub: S Marlet, 16 6). Substitutes not used: M Hahnemann, K Betsy, P Trollope. Booked: Finnan, Brevett.
WYCOMBE WANDERERS (4-3-1-2):
M Taylor 8 — D Carroll 5 (sub: S Roberts, 41 6), M Rogers 6, J Cousins 5, C Vinnicombe 4 — M Simpson 5, D Bulman 6, S Brown 4 (sub: M Lee, 71) — D Currie 5 — K Ryan 6, J McSporran 5 (sub: S Devine, 80). Substitutes not used: M Osborn, R Johnson. Booked: Vinnicombe, Cousins, Bulman, Brown, Roberts. Sent off: Cousins.
Referee: G Barber 7.
Source The Times by Peter Lansley