Fulham 5-1 Werder Bremen: Sunday Mirror match report
Published 23:00 07/08/10 By MirrorFootball
Mark Hughes backed Bobby Zamora to become “one of the Premier League’s best” after watching him terrorise Werder Bremen.
With Fabio Capello’s England squad announcement looming, Zamora showed great timing to score Fulham’s first and tee up Zoltan Gera – who grabbed a 12-minute hat-trick – for Fulham’s third goal.
Zamora’s exploits were also witnessed by Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson, at Craven Cottage to view Mesut Ozil, who starred for Germany in the World Cup.
Hughes said: “You can see the quality Bobby has. He has the ability to be one of the best players in the Premier League.”
In torrential rain, Fulham looked uncomfortable against Werder’s stikers Hugo Almeida and Chelsea reject Claudio Pizarro, who scored on 13 minutes.
Pizarro met Petri Pasanen’s pinpoint left-wing cross to beat Mark Schwarzer in the Fulham goal with an agile volley.
After a disappointing first half Fulham were level within eight minutes of the restart.
Zamora latched on to Clint Dempsey’s flicked through-ball to easily beat Wiese in the Bremen goal.
From then on, the stage belonged to substitute Zoltan Gera, the Hungarian smashed in a 25-yard thunderbolt past Wiese on 65 minutes, before he noddedZamora’s angled ball home from eight yards for his second just minutes later.
His hat-trick was complete on 76 minutes, as Wiese rushed out of his goal to meet the rampaging Zamora, but succeeded only in clearing straight to Gera who hit the ball into an empty net from 35 yards.
The rout was completed for Fulham by sub Eddie Johnson who prodded home late on.
