Fulham 1-2 Man City: The Daily Mirror match report

Fulham failed to stage another famous fightback at Craven Cottage yesterday as Carlos Tevez performed his own masterclass.

The Argentine scored his third goal in three games since returning from compassionate leave to lift Manchester City into fifth place.

And his virtuoso display of skill, touch and vision also proved to be the difference between a brave Fulham side, who fought back strongly after the break following Thursday’s heroics against Juventus, and Roberto Mancini’s men.

The fifth-placed side in the Premier League proved to be much better than the fifth-placed side in Serie A, even if they tried to sit Italian-style on a 2-0 lead after the break.

Roque Santa Cruz and Tevez scored before Danny Murphy netted from the spot to set up an unexpectedly tense finish.

After only their fifth away win of the campaign, Mancini was stretching the boundaries of linguistic licence by describing the victory as “comfortable”.

But the Italian was right to heap praise on his 26-year-old striker who has now scored 22 goals this season.

“Carlos scored a fantastic goal, a great goal, a key goal,” he said.

“At 2-0 we played with calm and had a lot of chances. It’s important that we won the game but also that we took our chances.”

On six minutes Bobby Zamora nodded Damien Duff’s cross into Zoltan Gera’s path and his scooped shot was acrobatically cleared off the line by the retreating Kolo Toure.

As Fulham appealed the ball had crossed the line, City immediately counter-attacked and Craig Bellamy’s cross-shot deflected off Aaron Hughes and hit the near post.

Wrong-footed, Mark Schwarzer fell to the floor and allowed the rebound to slip through his grasp for Cruz to tap home.

The Fulham faithful, who had seen David Trezeguet give Juve a second-minute lead in midweek, responded by chanting: “We are going to win 4-1”.

But Mancini’s side doubled their lead after 36 minutes.

Tevez and Bellamy exchanged passes to slice open the Fulham right flank and when Hughes was forced out wide to cover Chris Baird, the Argentine drifted into the space. He collected the Welshman’s pass and skipped around Manchester United-bound Chris Smalling – deputising for the injured Brede Hangeland – before slotting home past Schwarzer.

As on Thursday night, Roy Hodgson reinvigorated his side after the break with fresh legs, including European match-winner Clint Dempsey.

Adam Johnson hit the post for City with a cross-shot but the last half an hour saw unrelenting Fulham pressure. They were rewarded after 74 minutes when Baird’s cross was handled by Gareth Barry. Captain Murphy, who had missed both legs against Juve through suspension, sent Shay Given the wrong way from 12 yards.

Sub Stefano Okaka sliced wide when sent through after 82 minutes while City should have settled the match seven minutes later – Tevez released City sub Nigel De Jong clear on goal but he shot weakly at Schwarzer.

And in injury time Bjorn Helge Riise’s cross hit Vincent Kompany’s hand in the box at point-blank range. It was a carbon-copy of the incident which led to Fulham’s penalty on Thursday when Duff’s ball hit Diego. But this was another day and another result. It means Fulham have won only one match in the last seven as they approach Wednesday’s FA quarter-final replay at Tottenham.

But Hodgson insisted his team were not flagging. He said. “We conceded two very bad goals to them in the first half but I thought the team did remarkably well to come back from that and City were much happier to hear the final whistle than we were.”