Tottenham and Fulham will get an FA Cup replay perhaps neither of them wanted in 10 days’ time, as the two teams stuttered their way to a 0-0 draw Saturday evening at Craven Cottage.
The replay will favor Tottenham, who will have home-field advantage for the replay, but it adds another game to the fixture list as Spurs chase the fourth and final English Champions League spot for next season.
Tottenham had the better possession in the first half, but didn’t create many chances with it. In fact, the first real chance of the game came to Fulham, as Bobby Zamora squirmed his way through the defense after a nice pass from Zoltan Gera, but his shot was a fairly easy save for Gomes.
Niko Kranjcar had Spurs’ first real chance in the 28th minute, and it wasn’t a huge one, but his swerving shot gave Schwarzer some trouble, forcing him to punch it out. Luckily for Fulham, there were no attackers in the area. Two minutes later, Spurs got their best chance of the half on a Peter Crouch patented outjump-the-defender move. His header, seemingly out of nothing, nearly found its way inside the far post, but Schwarzer made a nice save.
That was about it for the first half.
Fulham had a very bright start after the intermission, but couldn’t quite make it count. Just 50 seconds after the restart, Zamora laid off a header for Gera, but Gomes made a nice save. Four minutes later, John Utaka had a free header off a corner kick, but it was straight at Gomes.
The play – although not really end-to-end – did go back and forth after that, with Michael Dawson roaming forward far enough for a left-footed volley that screamed wide of the near post. Damien Duff had a decent effort two minutes later at the other end, but his shot from 20 yards out went wide.
Duff again found a hole for himself in the 77th minute when Gera found him with a cross-field pass, but he had little time and his shot went well wide.
Harry Redknapp chose to rest a nicked up Jermaine Defoe, finally bringing him on in the 81st minute for Roman Pavlyuchenko, who was largely ineffective.
But it was Fulham was closed the game the strongest, looking for the winner that would push them into the semifinals, but it never came, despite the best efforts of Zamora, who had another chance denied, and Vedran Corluka, who nearly won the game for Fulham with an own goal in the dying minutes.
Advantage Tottenham, but with only 12 healthy regulars for this game, we’ll see what Redknapp and Spurs have for the replay.
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