Pajtim Kasami scored a contender for goal of the season as Fulham swept to a 4-1 victory over fellow strugglers Crystal Palace on Monday.
Martin Jol's side had suffered an early setback at Selhurst Park when Adrian Mariappa headed Palace into the lead.
But Switzerland
midfielder Kasami, born in Macedonia to an Albanian family, illuminated
a dank evening in south-east London with a majestic volleyed equaliser
from an acute angle that conjured up memories of Marco van Basten's
famous strike for Holland against the USSR in the final of the 1988
European Championships.
Palace never
recovered from Kasami's first half wonder-goal and Steve Sidwell
produced a fine goal of his own to put Fulham ahead before the
interval. Dimitar Berbatov and Philippe Senderos
piled on the misery for Palace with second half goals as Fulham secured
only their third English Premier League win of the season.
It
was the first time Fulham had scored four goals in an away Premier
League fixture since a 4-1 win at Newcastle United in November 2004. The
victory lifted the Cottagers to 14th place and, given the broad smile
worn by Fulham's owner Shahid Khan as he looked on from the directors'
box, it may also have eased the pressure on under-fire boss Jol.
For
second bottom Palace it was another harsh lesson in the realities of
life among English football's elite. The Eagles have now lost seven of
their eight league matches on their return to the Premier League after
an eight-year absence and the happy memories of last season's promotion
from the Championship must feel increasingly distant to boss Ian
Holloway and his beleaguered players.
It
could have been so different for Palace if they had built on their dream
start. With just seven minutes played, Jason Puncheon crossed from the
left and centre-back Mariappa climbed above Brede Hangeland to head in
from six yards.
But Fulham were level 12
minutes later thanks to Kasami's stunning intervention. There seemed
little danger when the 21-year-old former Palermo star ran onto Sascha
Riether's long ball down the right side of the Palace area, but he
showed brilliant technique to control the pass on his chest before
unleashing a dipping volley that flashed into the top corner of Julian
Speroni's goal.
Speroni had no chance of
reaching that strike and he was left grasping at thin air again when
Sidwell put Fulham ahead in the 45th minute. Bryan Ruiz hit a free-kick
into the Palace wall and Sidwell was first to the rebound, blasting a
superb first-time shot into the top corner from the edge of the penalty
area.
Speroni was beaten in more prosaic
manner in the 50th minute when former Manchester United striker Berbatov
glanced a header from Ruiz's corner into the far corner for his first
league goal of the season. Berbatov had been given too much time to meet
the delivery and Palace compounded the error by leaving the far post
unguarded.
There was worse to come for
shell-shocked Palace five minutes later when Speroni failed to keep out
Senderos's close-range volley, allowing the former Arsenal defender to
notch his first goal since April 2012 after being left unmarked at the
far post from another Ruiz corner.
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