FA Premiership/ Fulham 1 Manchester United 2: Championships are not won until the frontrunners are out of reach but there are moments when the prospect of anyone catching them no longer seems a practical possibility.
One of these occurred beside the Thames on Saturday when in the 88th minute Cristiano Ronaldo outpaced two Fulham players on the left before cutting in to secure an unlikely victory for Manchester United and extend their lead over Chelsea at the top of the Premiership to nine points.
Chelsea have a match in hand and United not only have to go to Stamford Bridge in April but are also at Liverpool this weekend. Yet even with such a strong advantage, Alex Ferguson's team could lose both these fixtures and still have enough in hand to take the title to Old Trafford for the first time in four seasons.
Certainly the rejoicing on the visitors' bench as Ronaldo's goal went in suggested that this was a win of considerable significance, achieved as it was after United had been outpaced, out-tackled and outmanoeuvred by a Fulham side who showed touches of genuine class after spending much of the season below the salt in the Premiership table.
"I have to admit I could not see it coming," Ferguson said afterwards. "Sometimes there are games where you get the feeling you would like to come back another day. I felt like that after two minutes. Our running was poor and the speed of our game was poor. Yet we scored so late on it could be significant."
Ferguson's response to the way Fulham dominated the match was to reorganise his side, not to cling on for the draw but to keep alive hopes of a win. That is why Ronaldo ended up on the left wing, having enjoyed limited success on the right.
Ronaldo's goal apart, the two men who did more than most to keep United in Saturday's contest were Edwin van der Sar and Ryan Giggs. Van der Sar began hesitantly and it was his mix-up with Nemanja Vidic that enabled Brian McBride to put Fulham ahead from a narrow angle after 17 minutes. But from then on the United goalkeeper thwarted Fulham with several sharp saves, the best of them to turn a shot from Simon Davies round a post at the start of the second half.
Giggs wore the captain's armband in the absence of Gary Neville, who was left out for tactical reasons, it was said, in case anyone thought he was being disciplined for telling Ferguson where to go during that touchline fracas in Lens. Either way Giggs was inspired as he sought to break Fulham's grip on the midfield and in particular Michael Brown's shackling of Paul Scholes, with tireless running and a quality of vision that saw United draw level on the half-hour. Having released Wayne Rooney on the left, Giggs sprinted past the defence on the right to meet a dipping centre and beat Jan Lastuvka with a cross-shot off the outside of his left foot.
For dramatic effect there was little to choose between the two goals United scored and Fulham were left to rue a failure to take simpler chances; Tomasz Radzinski heading Brown's centre against the bar when he should have scored and Davies shooting straight at Van der Sar when he had only the goalkeeper to beat.
The losing manager, Chris Coleman, put Peter Walton's failure to award them a penalty after Van der Sar had collided with Heidar Helguson down to the referee losing his nerve. In reality Fulham lost because a moment earlier Ronaldo was nervelessness personified as he sped past Moritz Volz and Clint Dempsey before scoring via Philippe Christanval's ankle.
- Guardian Service
