United left to pay the penalty

AT LAST, following a seemingly endless parade of cricket scores and one-sided turkey shoots, Manchester United and Fulham have produced a match that proves the Premier League is not dead.

Following a hat-trick of 6-0 victories in the space of one weekend (Wigan 0 Chelsea 6; Arsenal 6 Blackpool 0 and Newcastle 6 Aston Villa 0) there were some serious questions being asked yesterday about the competitiveness and quality of the league, so it was encouraging to see the debate suspended for a while by an intense and dramatic battle at Craven Cottage that ended 2-2 and featured a pulsating finale by the Thames.

Brede Hangeland’s thunderous header in injury-time left even United manager Alex Ferguson admitting Fulham deserved a point, especially as the big defender had scored an unfortunate own goal only minutes earlier to put the visitors 2-1 ahead. The match also included a wonderful strike from Paul Scholes, his 150th in all competitions for United, as well as a superb penalty save from young goalkeeper David Stockdale and a cameo performance from Fulham striker Bobby Zamora.

The result leaves United third in the table behind Chelsea, who are the only team with six points from two games this season.

But even Red Devils fans must have enjoyed the spectacle and relished the fact that smaller clubs such as Fulham can still inspire matches of this quality despite the increasingly predictable nature of the league.

That, in fact, is a real relief given the string of freak results that have baffled statisticians in recent weeks.

In days gone by, six-goal thrashings were rare; a blip, a cause of amazement and feverish late-night discussion.

Quite what that says about the Premier League’s claim to be the best in the world is hard to say but United and Fulham certainly made a decent case at Craven Cottage in a fixture that only 15 years ago would have been considered a dead cert for double figures.

Fulham, however, have evolved under the ownership of Mohamed Al Fayed into a solid top-flight club with a reputation for upsetting the big boys. This is their 10th successive season in the top flight and, under previous manager Roy Hodgson, they reached the Europa League Final last season – a remarkable achievement for a club that was 91st in the league in 1996.

So perhaps their comeback against United should’ve been expected.

“I think this match shows it’s a really strong league,” insisted manager Mark Hughes. “We’ve had results this weekend which you wouldn’t have expected, but we’re still getting used to the new season with changes in management and players coming in. You can get exposed with some of the quality that is in the Premier League.

“But I’ve been really pleased with the quality I’ve found here and we’re delighted because we showed good character to get back into the game. The penalty save gave us the belief we needed to kick on and equalise and I thought it was a good game.”

Veteran Paul Scholes, who has seen it all before, opened the scoring after only 11 minutes with a strike of real technical quality.

The midfielder, named man of the match for both the Community Shield and the opening-day victory over Newcastle, was 25 metres out when he put United ahead with a perfectly-hit first-time shot, teed up by Bulgarian Dimitar Berbatov.

Dickson Etuhu was then denied by an impressive double save from Edwin van der Sar but United, who were playing without talisman striker Wayne Rooney, ruled out with a virus, were eventually pegged back in the second half when Damien Duff found the excellent Bobby Zamora on the right and he cut a perfect pass back for Simon Davies to fire home emphatically.

United brought on both Ryan Giggs and Michael Owen in a bid to find a winner and thought they had done it when Nani’s corner hit Hangeland in the 84th minute and trickled over the line. And they really should have taken all three points when Duff cleared the ball onto his own hand to give away a harsh penalty – only for Nani to see his effort superbly saved by Stockdale. That set the scene for Hangeland’s thunderous late header.

“You don’t want to be dropping silly points and we dropped silly points today. We can’t escape that,” said Ferguson.

Maybe so. But it was a good day for the Premier League.