Fulham suffer heaviest defeat for 16 months

Fulham 0 Blackburn 4

Tigana now has just six games left as boss and Gianluca Vialli, the bookmakers' favourite to become his successor, was in the Loftus Road directors' box to witness this 4-0 humiliation at the hands of UEFA Cup hopefuls Blackburn.

Steed Malbranque, so often Fulham's most dangerous player, came closest to scoring so far on the half hour. Steve Marlet expertly squared to him 20 yards out and his swerving first-time strike was parried by the diving Brad Friedel.

Malbranque turned Craig Short inside out with a jinking run two minutes later but he could not get his left boot round the ball enough to keep his shot on target. But Rovers upped their game and went into the lead with 36 minutes on the clock.

Cole snapped up a loose ball and fired goalwards, only for Martin Djetou to make a sensational goal-line block, deflecting Cole's effort onto his bar.

But Fulham failed to complete their clearance and Garry Flitcroft hooked a cross back into the danger zone, where Lee Clark was distracted by David Dunn's flick on and managed handled.

Referee Graham Poll pointed to the penalty spot and Dunn sent Maik Taylor the wrong way to put Graeme Souness' side ahead. And the Lancastrians doubled their lead six minutes later when Hakan Sukur bagged his first Blackburn goal.

The striker latched onto Neill's far-post cross, side-stepped Finnan's challenge and coolly slotted home from six yards. Fulham centre-back Zat Knight prevented Sukur adding a second five minutes after the interval when he blocked the Turk's eight-yard shot. But Rovers' third goal arrived two minutes later anyway when Cole latched onto a long punt up field and cleverly held off Finnan to square for Damien Duff. He raced goalwards and smacked the ball under Taylor.

Fulham were in tatters at the back and three became four just 60 seconds later when Cole prodded the ball through to Sukur who rounded Finnan yet again and showed nerves of steel to side-foot into the bottom corner.

Malbranque tried to restore a little pride with a determined run and shot, but Friedel saved comfortably.

FULHAM: Taylor, Finnan, Goma, Knight, Harley, Clark, Malbranque, Djetou, Boa Morte, Marlet, Saha.

BLACKBURN: Friedel, Neill, Short, Berg, Gresko, Tugay, Flitcroft, Dunn, Duff, Sukur, Cole.