Hapless Gomes sabotages Spurs

DAMIEN COMOLLI may be long gone from Tottenham Hotspur, but it appears he has had his revenge by leaving the north Londoners with Heurelho Gomes.

The Brazilian goalkeeper was snapped up from PSV Eindhoven for a princely £8m in the summer but on his recent form, Spurs would be lucky to realise a tenth of that sum in the January transfer window.

Gomes is rapidly establishing himself as one of the most clownish goalkeeping imports the Premier League has ever seen, his latest blunder — inexplicably allowing a tame cross-shot from Simon Davies to slip through his fingers, hit him on the chest and bobble into the net — setting Spurs on their way to a first defeat under Harry Redknapp, who now fears his number one will be targeted by merciless opponents.

“Fulham just blocked up the goalmouth on every corner and made it difficult for him,” he admitted. “You could see they were doing that on every corner. I would imagine he will get targeted. He has got to deal with that. But if you look at his record in Holland, he was a world class goalkeeper. He made a bad mistake for the goal but he made some saves after that. I have to stay with him.

“Their first goal certainly didn’t help anyone but we’ve just got to keep believing in him because that’s it, he is our goalkeeper. It is no good caning him – I’ve got nobody else.”

Tottenham were left chasing the game when Andrew Johnson pounced for Fulham’s second in the 69th minute after Gomes elected to stay on his line. Substitute Fraizer Campbell scored a late consolation but Tottenham’s biggest mistake was to launch a succession of high balls at the Fulham defence where Brede Hangeland gobbled them up.

Danny Murphy was impressive in the Fulham midfield and insists he is now enjoying his football at Craven Cottage after admitting his time at Spurs had been ‘indifferent’.

“I’ve got a lot of responsibility on my shoulders in terms of the captaincy and my role in the team,” said Murphy.

“I’m probably fitter and stronger than I’ve been in a while because last season was my first full one after an indifferent time at Spurs.

“I think we’ve got a better squad now than we’ve had before. I just want to be part of a successful season and not go through the emotions of the last one. We don’t just want to be a pretty footballing side and not win games, we want to be both.”

FULHAM (4-4-2): Schwarzer 7, Pantsil 6, Hughes 7, Hangeland 7, Konchesky 6, Dempsey 7 (Gera 87, 5), Murphy 8, Bullard 8 (Andreasen 90, 5), Davies 7, Johnson 7, Zamora 6.

Subs Not Used: Zuberbuhler, Nevland, Gray, Kallio, Baird.

TOTTENHAM (4-4-1-1): Gomes 4, Corluka 6, Woodgate 6, King 5, Bale 6, Bentley 6, Jenas 6, Huddlestone 5 (Pavlyuchenko 45, 6), Zokora 6, Modric 5 (Lennon 45, 6), Bent 5 (Campbell 71, 7).

Subs Not Used: Cesar, Hutton, Dawson, Assou-Ekotto.

REFEREE: Alan Wiley (Staffordshire) 7: Only the players made the errors.

MATCH RATING: *** Fulham continue to impress at home while Spurs are back to earth with a bump.