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Manchester City 2 Fulham 2:THERE WAS a point when Bobby Zamora, the Fulham striker whose career has become synonymous with holding his head and looking disbelievingly to the skies, must have feared his early contender for miss of the season had wrecked Fulham’s chances. Zamora had produced what has become known as a “Ronnie Rosenthal moment” and Manchester City punished him with goals from Joleon Lescott and Martin Petrov. But then everything went wrong for Mark Hughes’s team and all the old symptoms of what Joe Royle used to call “Cityitis” came flooding back.

Damien Duff’s low shot started the comeback three minutes after Petrov had made it 2-0. Within five minutes Clint Dempsey had headed in Jonathan Greening’s free-kick and, suddenly, all the worst City traits, the ones their supporters must have hoped had been expunged after a near €272 million transfer splurge, had returned to undermine them.