French duel settled with Sava flair

Fulham 3 Liverpool

At the end of yesterday's engrossing contest, the French managers of Fulham and Liverpool faced very different priorities. Message from Jean Tigana to the Fulham costume designers: please provide Facundo Sava with a larger supply of masks before future matches. Message from Gérard Houllier to the Liverpool scriptwriters: please explain how we have got ourselves into this dreadful mess.

Steven Gerrard was back on the bench for Liverpool, serving the second of his "punishments" following a very public dressing-down from his manager. And while it would be too easy to blame Fulham's two first-half goals on the midfielder's absence, the fact remains that the home side had too much space and time to force an opening on both occasions.

"I'm a very disappointed manager," Houllier said. "That was as poor a start as we made in Basle [in the Champions' League two weeks ago]. But every team has a bad patch during a season and we have to stick together to get through this." The one consolation for Houllier is that Arsenal lost as well.

There were only five minutes on the clock when Steed Malbranque's deep cross was half-cleared by the Liverpool defence. Having seen his first long-range shot parried by Jerzy Dudek, Sean Davis reacted quickest to the rebound and launched another bullet towards goal. This time, the Liverpool goalkeeper had to go down low to make the save, but could do no more than palm the ball into the path of the onrushing Sava. The Fulham striker needed only to sidefoot the ball home from eight yards for the easiest of openers.

Despite the fact that he put on his now-familiar face mask, there was no hiding the Argentinian's pleasure at scoring his third goal of the season. He then handed the mask to a delighted fan in the crowd. It was that sort of happy afternoon at Loftus Road.

Liverpool tried to respond, but could not find a way though. Following a lengthy exchange of head tennis, the ball suddenly fell to Emile Heskey on the edge of the Fulham box just before the quarter-hour mark. The England striker unleashed a venomous right-foot strike which looked certain to provide the visitors with an equaliser, but Edwin van der Sar stuck out his right leg to make a wonderful save. The Dutchman was at it again six minutes later, when John Arne Riise's deflected free-kick took a nasty bounce but could not deceive the sprawling goalkeeper.

With 27 minutes gone, Liverpool fashioned another half-chance when Michael Owen found himself unmarked 16 yards from goal. The ball was running slightly behind him, though, and his shot went ballooning over the bar. Despite Liverpool's best efforts, Fulham were never unduly troubled, and were creating chances of their own. After 33 minutes, Bjarne Goldbaek's wonderful through-ball released Steve Marlet on goal, but the combination of Sami Hyypia and Dudek was enough to force him wide.

Liverpool's respite was only short-lived as Davis again lost Salif Diao in the centre of midfield before drilling in a low shot towards goal. After some confusion, it emerged that the shot had deflected past Dudek off Sava's knee, thus offering the striker his second of the day. The Argentinian later offered the goal to his team-mate, but the Premier League are likely to award it to the man with the mask.

It came as no surprise that Houllier rang the changes at half-time, replacing Diao with Gerrard and the defender Markus Babbel with a striker, Milan Baros. At least no one could question Liverpool's style of play now, as Houllier's men poured forward at every opportunity.

Despite their more attacking mentality, the Reds still had no real conviction. In fact, such was their lack of invention that you could not see where a goal would come from. Cue Dietmar Hamann. The German international was having a quiet game by his standards when he was presented with a free-kick 30 yards from goal. Hamann hit the shot with such power and precision that two Van der Sars would have been incapable of preventing the ball lodging itself in the top corner of the goal.

Liverpool had an undeserved lifeline, but rather than build on it, they let the game slip away again. Having given away yet more ground in midfield, Liverpool's defence were slowest to react to a loose ball, as Sava pounced to complete his hat-trick with an excellent left-foot skimmer which left Dudek no chance.

This was the masked man's day, and not even Alain Goma's dismissal for a second bookable offence 20 minutes from time or Baros's well-taken consolation goal on 86 minutes were going to ruin the party.

Fulham 3 Liverpool 2
Sava 5, 38, 68; Hamann 62, Baros 86

Half-time: 2-0 Attendance: 18,144