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Aston Villa manager, Ron Saunders, just voted Second Division manager of the month, came straight to the point: “We were awful.”

If you had looked at statistics from past seasons you might have had a hint of the result, but the weight of recent evidence was on the side of Villa.

Although they have yet to win against Fulham since both clubs returned to the Second Division and have only won at Craven Cottage twice in their life, just look at what Villa had going for them.

Unbeaten in ten games; only two goals conceded in the last seven League games and Leighton Phillips had never been on a losing Villa side, just for good luck.

All that was blown apart in 1 min 31 sec.

A short corner from Barry Lloyd to full back John Cutbush allowed him to a lob at the far post for centre-half John Lacy to head the fifth goal of his career.

Cutbush had already shown his danger on the overlap with a run that brought two shots from Alan Slough one blocked, one saved that eventually brought the corner.

Thus Villa had from the first minute to strengthen the left side of their defence. But by the 81st minute - with the game lost - they still hadn’t learned the lesson. Lloyd tapped a short corner to Cutbush (familiar?) and Slough, unmarked, got too far under the cross, heading over.

Saunders’s remarks were scathing:

“We gave three goals away. We just didn’t play. It was our worst performance.”

No argument, but it was also a refreshing, exciting game (“Give us ten out of ten for entertainment.” said Saunders sarcastically) with Fulham, without a win in six League matches putting their game together beautifully.

This catalogue of shots, near misses and goals will give an idea of how frequently the action flowed and how that path down Fulham’s right flanks was trodden.

14th minute: Cutbush on the overlap and Viv Busby flies in to head over;

15th minute: Cutbush cross-shot from the right brings a corner;

20th minute: Jimmy Conway hits a cross shot from the right;

24th minute: build up on the right allows Lacy THREE successive shots, two blocked and one wide;

27th minute: Cutbush cross from right and Jimmy Cumbes beats out a Lloyd shot;

28th minute: Cutbush cross from right and Les Barrett lobs over;

48th minute: Barrett’s run down the right takes him through the Villa cover, Cumbes misses the cross and John Gidman’s half clearance allows Busby a tap-in goal;

52nd minute: Conway and Slough use the right side for a through ball that Lloyd delicately heads in for the third goal;

Ray Graydon at least was in good form again for Villa and was involved with Chico Hamilton in the move which brought Brian Little’s headed goal after 63 minutes.