Blackburn make up some ground

Blackburn 2 Fulham 0:APART FROM the one about "never reading the newspapers" a football manager's greatest lie is that he takes one game at a time. Their horizons extend far beyond the coming Saturday and, when he glanced at the fixtures in the summer, Blackburn's run of home games between December and March would have struck Sam Allardyce as an immense opportunity.

Sunderland, Fulham, Wigan, Hull, Bolton and Birmingham were all, on the surface, winnable matches. And since the final visitors to Ewood Park are Chelsea, Manchester United, Everton and Arsenal, they had better be won. Thus far, the tally from the first two is four points.

The Blackburn manager used the word “pressure” repeatedly when discussing his first victory since his former club Bolton were beaten on a November afternoon when he was enduring a heart-related operation. Then Allardyce went through all the near misses he had suffered in the weeks that followed.

“I keep repeating myself. I keep going through it,” he said. “Chris Samba’s last-minute miss against Sunderland, which would have given us a 3-2 win. Benni McCarthy’s overhead kick that would have given us a win at Wigan. Nikola Kalinic putting it wide at Hull, then a last-minute miss against Liverpool that would have meant a 1-0 win. We’d have been talking about goddamn Europe if they had all gone in. That is how marginal it has been.”

Even in victory against a Fulham side who lost first Paul Konchesky to an ankle injury and then Clint Dempsey to a suspected damaged cruciate that might cast a shadow over the American’s World Cup preparations, Allardyce was cautious.

“You have to remember that two centre-halves have scored for us today,” he said. “We need the creative players to start upping their totals. Ryan Nelsen is the joint leading goalscorer at the club with three. It is obviously not enough. We are all feeling the pressure.”

Somebody, presumably with plenty of time on their hands, had worked out that this was Allardyce’s 100th Premier League win. If so, it came in classic Big Sam fashion with two goals from set-pieces.

Both were delivered by McCarthy. The first was a scuffed corner that surprised Damien Duff who half-cleared it to Samba who marked his 100th appearance for the club with a goal. The second, a free-kick that Nelsen met on the run and stooped to head home, was dreadfully defended.

“We have to do better away from home,” said Fulham manager Roy Hodgson. “It is not enough to play nice football and look good. We have to get that edge back into our game.”