Spirited Fulham frustrate Mancini and terminate City’s perfect start
FULHAM (2) vs MANCHESTER CITY (2)
MANCHESTER CITY manager Roberto Mancini accused his players of wastefulness for the second time in four days after seeing Fulham’s spirited second half comeback end his side’s 100 per cent start to the Premier League season.
On Wednesday the Italian was displeased with the selfishness exhibited by his forwards in the 1-1 Champions League draw with Napoli and was equally dissatisfied yesterday after goals from Bobby Zamora and Danny Murphy cancelled out Sergio Aguero’s brace.
The result was the first blow to City’s title hopes, allowing rivals Manchester United to open up a two-point lead at the top of the table.
“This could be a lesson for us,” said Mancini. “Because when you dominate a game like we did today, and you score only two goals, it’s a problem.
“For 10 or 15 minutes after Fulham scored, they played very well. But a football match is 95 minutes and a top team like us needs to have more control of the game. I’m not angry. I’m just disappointed because we conceded two stupid goals.”
A fifth successive league win looked a formality once the prolific Aguero had smashed home his eighth goal of the season just 10 seconds into the second half – adding to his calmly taken 18th minute opener.
But the tide turned in the 56th minute when Micah Richards allowed Zamora too much time on the edge of the City penalty area to curl a shot into the top corner.
And Murphy levelled matters 15 minutes from the end with a shot that found the back of Joe Hart’s net via the shin of City skipper Vincent Kompany to rescue a highly creditable point for Martin Jol’s men, who remain in the bottom three.
“It was a fantastic achievement to come back against them. I am not sure if they will give away leads like this in the future,” said Jol.
“To come back from the death is what we probably did.”