Fulham progress with 6-0 aggregate victory
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There was a general feeling of job done leading into Fulhams home tie with Lithuanian side FK Vetra. Bobby Zamora, Danny Murphy and Seol Ki-Hyeon provided the Cottagers with a 3-goal cushion back in Vilnius, but Roy Hodgson wasnt taking any chances andnamed a reasonably strongteam to eliminate any potential banana skins into the next round.That said, there was only 15,016 in attendance at Craven Cottage, even with prices set at 15 adults and 5 for children. Perhaps word had spread about the reputation of the Piktas Lokys or the Angry Bears to you and I Vetras hooligan firm, much feared in their home country. But the away following was relatively small and Jim Plunkett Jersey mostly made up of fans from the surrounding area, a calm atmospheremaintained throughout the night. The miserable weather was probably more of an incentive to stay home.Both teams observe a minute of silence in honour of Sir Bobby RobsonFulham started brightly, taking advantage of a shaky start from Vetra, who wereunder pre sure to try and relieve at least some of the deficit. There was plenty of space for the West London side to explore, Paul Konchesky in particular supplying cro ses from the left which were not used to their full potential.However, Vetra could well have been in front after 11 minutes. Razanauskas fierce long distance drive after an advance into enemy territory was parried over the cro sbar by Mark Schwarzer. And had Grigalevicius continuedpre suring John Pantsildeep intoFulhams half, instead ofconceding an uneccesary foul,the Lithuanian side mayhave gained something more fruitful.Set pieces from both sides were spurned; Zoltan Gera should have done better from Zamoras 34th minute corner, and Stanaitis indecision meant a late first half free kick went to waste.Fulham kept up their dominance after the break, pa sing the ball fluently around the field and Desmond Trufant Jersey coming close through Konchesky and Clint Dempsey. Yet they had to wait until the 57th minute to break the deadlock. Eliosius gifted the home side a corner, and Dixon Etuhu,absent from last weeks teamsheet due to the birth of his child, headed home powerfully from Koncheskys curling cro s.TheCottagerscould nowafford to take their foot off the gas, Hodgsonsubstituting Gera and Pantsil with new signings Steven Kelly from Birmingham and Bjorn Helge Riise, brother of John Arne. There was seemingly no way back for Vetra now their only concern was to maintain a degree of respectability by conceding no further goals.Andy Johnson, however, had other ideas, striking the ball home from close range in the 80th minute.Dempsey was heavily involved in thegoal,theAmerican stealing the ball from Eliosius inside the defendersown half, producing a step over and sendingan accurate cro s over Lyle Alzado Jersey to Johnson.Andy Johnson celebrates his goalFour minutes later and the former Everton striker had a brace.Eddie Johnson, who had replacedZamora on the pitch only moments earlier, found himself with space from Dempseys clever pa s, and put in a low ball acro s goal for AJ to again tap into the net. Game over for Vetra, although in all fairne s it had been for quite some time now.Another commanding performance in defence from Brede Hangeland, but with Arsenal reportedly interested in the Norwegian, could that have been his last?Man of theMatch was certainly Dempsey, who was always in the thick of the action.Fulham now have a trip to Ru sia to look forward to,as todays Europa League draw paired them with Amkar Perm.
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