Fulham v Derby: An opinion

But for the brilliance of Antti Niemi, yesterday could have been an even bigger disaster. Our Finnish stopper was back to his best and boy did he need to be. He pulled off save after save to keep us in the match and guaranteed that we walked away with at least one point.

But is a draw really good enough against the league's bottom side? A team that have conceded a whopping 22 goals in nine games; failed to score either a goal or point away from home; and which have been on the wrong end of four, five and six-nil drubbings? Of course it's not.

The players knew it; Mohamed Al Fayed in the stands knew it; and the fans that serenaded the team off with a chorus of boos at half and full time knew it. We have been very patient with this new team but two months into the season the teething problems should have been sorted out.

Yes there were a few mitigating circumstances. Konchesky getting sent off in first-half injury time after reacting like a schoolboy and swinging an elbow when Fagan held him was a contributing factor, but the fact remains we were awful from the start.

Sanchez made five changes from the side that lost to Pompey. In a number of cases this was to give a rest to those players who had turned out for their countries last week. However, this had the effect of cutting out ALL the creative flair from the midfield as both Simon Davies and Alexey Smertin were relegated to the bench.

Thus we resorted to the miserable plan of lumping balls up to Clint Dempsey in the hope that he will be able to claim all the headers against man-mountain defenders as well as grabbing some goals and setting up Kamara. No, I didn't think that was going to work either.

Don't get me wrong. Dempsey was one of our best performers but the only way we were going to get behind Derby's back four was by playing it on the ground. We didn't. We struggled.

Elsewhere, Seol was woeful. Does he lack pace or is he not match fit? He's obviously got the skills but he plays like a 45-year-old ex-pro. Murphy was ineffective, Bouazza didn't really make his mark on the game and Steven Davis was not the controlling influence I hoped he would be.

Our defence, on the other hand, was relatively solid, although the lack of midfield grit meant the back four were tested on far more occasions than was acceptable. Baird had his best game in a white shirt (thankfully), Stefanovich was relatively solid and Konchesky was okay in his brief stint. Hughes, however, had a howler. Almost scoring an own goal and letting Miller through for a strike were his worst mistakes but there were plenty of others.

Our best chances were the two in the first half: one scuffed by Murphy and a Blaird thunderbolt which was well saved - and Dempsey's two attempts in the second, as well as a decent effort from David Healy which, again, was saved by Bywater.

In my opinion Derby have every right to feel robbed. They had some cracking efforts and if they had caught Niemi on a bad day they could have bolstered their goal difference by four or five goals...easily.

Some credit has to go to the players for battling hard and not conceding when we were down to ten men but the harsh reality is that we didn't deserve anything more than a point. Even if Konchesky had stayed on the pitch I can't see how we'd have found the back of the net.

Bizarrely, the way the other games went we actually rose five places yesterday so we're now sitting in a relativley healthy looking 13th spot. That should fool no-one. Unless a marked improvement is made in our next two games then Sanchez needs to make way.