Malbranque rescues Fulham again

Fulham 1 Burnley 1

The French midfielder scored a 44th-minute volley to earn a replay of this fifth-round tie at Turf Moor a week on Wednesday.

All but one of the eight goals the Cottagers have notched in their last five games have been scored by £4.5million man Malbranque.

In the third minute, Alan Moore had danced through the Fulham back line to beat Maik Taylor and give the Clarets hope of a cup shock.

Tigana's side hit back strongly in this full-blooded contest and equalised through Malbranque but Stan Ternent's men then held firm and deserved to go into the hat for today's quarter-final draw.

But the big talking point at Loftus Road was the pitiful attendance just 13,069, including 3,000 from Lancashire, and embarrassingly 632 fewer than the crowd for QPR's 4-0 win against Port Vale in the Second Division on Saturday.

Fulham boss Tigana afterwards vowed to quit management at the end of the season unless chairman Mohamed Al Fayed tells him his blueprint for the future. The Frenchman, whose three-year contract expires in the summer, held showdown talks with Harrods tycoon Al Fayed on Saturday.

And Tigana revealed he will only commit to a two-year contract extension if the club's owner reveals his targets for the Cottagers.

Al Fayed has poured more than £100million into the club but announced a wave of cost-cutting last month. And Tigana will retire unless Al Fayed comes clean on where the homeless club will play and the type of team he will fund for Tigana.

"I saw the chairman yesterday and we had a good conversation. He wants to see me again and I'm always optimistic. But the priority is the club, not me. The problem is the club's targets. Where will we play? Will we still try and build a young team, which is the sort of team I like to manage? I want to know.

I think the club can progress but I want to know the exact targets. If it's not possible to fight the big teams, will we try and build for the long term?"

FULHAM: Taylor, Finnan, Goma, Melville, Harley, Goldbaek (Marlet 45), Sean Davis, Djetou, Malbranque, Sava (Inamoto 72), Saha.

BURNLEY: Beresford, West, Diallo, Cox, Branch, Ian Moore, Grant, Cook (McGregor 82), Briscoe, Alan Moore (Weller 77), Taylor.

Referee: G Poll (Hertfordshire).