Middlesbrough ... 2 Fulham ... 1The record books will show three salient facts from last night: that Middlesbrough won, Fulham lost, and as a result 'Boro jumped five places to within two of the Londoners. Mid-table respectability is nearly there for the Teessiders.
What the scoreline will not show, however, is that Fulham deserved a draw and that the referee Dermot Gallagher made a pivotal decision in the 75th minute to blow up when Franck Queudrue had brought down Barry Hayles. Hayles got up and was about to shoot when the whistle blew.
Queudrue was not booked when he should have been dismissed. He already had a yellow card.
Instead, two minutes later, the substitute Szilard Nemeth scored Middlesbrough's winner and thus rendered Steve Marlet's 56th-minute equalizer to Alen Boksic's opener irrelevant.
Fulham's manager Jean Tigana was furious, Steve McClaren the opposite.
Just before Boksic's first goal for more than two months, Franck Queudrue had almost converted a Benito Carbone corner with a powerful far-post header. And when Benito Carbone released Boksic three minutes later it still should have been 0-0.
Boksic looked clearly offside when he ran on to Carbone's through ball. The Croatian thought so himself and half-stopped to look across to the linesman. No flag came up, though, and Boksic moved on to beat Edwin van der Sar with a clever chip.
Fulham still should have gone into the interval level all the same. In first-half injury-time Ugo Ehiogu paused as the ball went past him and in a split second Marlet was free and bearing down on Mark Schwarzer. Marlet took the ball around the keeper but his touch was heavy and from a wide position he scooped over.
Marlet did get on the scoresheet in the second half. A corner won when Gareth Southgate had to challenge Marlet was whipped in by Malbranque. Alain Goma met it at the near post and Marlet was left free at the far. His three-yard header was a formality.
Just as Middlesbrough had derived momentum from their goal, just as quickly it now belonged to Fulham. 'Boro were jittery, Malbranque was flowing. A 65th-minute pass from the diminutive 22-year-old again released Marlet for a stinging shot that Schwarzer did well to save.
Guardian Service
MIDDLESBROUGH: Schwarzer, Stockdale, Southgate, Ehiogu, Queudrue, Greening, Mustoe (Murphy 61), Ince, Carbone (Windass 70), Whelan (Nemeth 70), Boksic. Subs Not Used: Crossley, Gavin. Booked: Queudrue. Goals: Boksic 27, Nemeth 77.
FULHAM: Van der Sar, Finnan, Melville, Goma, Brevett, Legwinski, Davis, Malbranque, Collins (Saha 80), Marlet, Hayles. Subs Not Used: Harley, Taylor, Ouaddou, Willock. Booked: Legwinski, Saha. Goals: Marlet 56.
Referee: D Gallagher (Oxfordshire).
