FULHAM 2 - SAINTS 0

Just a few days ago Saints fans on a high as a 3-0 defeat of Portsmouth left Gordon Strachan's men in fourth.

After that game there was talk of the Champions League and possibly the best league finish for many a year.

But the cold turkey sandwiches wouldn't have gone down quite so well after the 3,000 south coast fans returned home disappointed yesterday afternoon.

Fulham were well worthy of their victory against Saints and were comfortably the better team.

Everything they had in abundance was what Saints were lacking.

The pace of their attack, slickness with the ball and the ability to retain possession.

The number of times the Saints midfield gave the ball away was far too high to be acceptable.

And in turn all that did was give Fulham more of the possession and more chances to attack Saints.

You can take nothing away from Fulham who are a good team with good players but Saints were poor.

With Pahars out injured it meant Strachan had to make a change from the successful team of recent weeks.

His decision was to keep Paul Telfer, David Prutton and Chris Marsden and then add Neil McCann bit it didn't pay off.

Saints lacked width and the only dangerous crosses came from set-pieces or James Beattie who should have been on the end of them.

With Fabrice Fernandes and Leandre Griffit not on the bench there was no real options to try and stretch the game across the pitch.

Instead the solid base provided by the back four, Antti Niemi, Telfer, Prutton and Marsden was only added to by McCann rather than using that as the springboard to play a creative talent.

Indeed Saints only managed two shots on target during the whole game.

Both of those came from substitute Kevin Phillips whose left footed 20 yard shot was scrambled behind by Edwin van der Sar on 60 minutes and then a weak header which fell into the Fulham keeper's arms a minute from time.

Fulham on the other hand had plenty of pace in their attack.

Louis Saha played as the lone striker in a formation that can be 4-5-1 but with Steed Malbranque and Luis Boa Morte looking to make it 4-3-3 when they attack.

Chris Coleman's side took the lead after 19 minutes through Saha after a good run by Malbranque.

The latter played a neat one-two with Lee Clark and poked the ball through to Saha whose first few yards took him away from Jason Dodd and he calmly finished across Niemi and into the far corner.

But from then on Fulham found it much harder to get past the Finnish number one who made some superb saves to keep the score remain respectable.

On the half hour mark Niemi stopped excellently full length as Clark unleashed a fiercely struck 30 yard drive.

In the second period Niemi was on his guard to beat out Saha's shot on 57 minutes before it fell to Junichi Inamoto who blazed over from the edge of the area.

But Niemi couldn't prevent Saha from adding his second from the penalty spot.

It all stemmed from Telfer giving the ball away very cheaply. He had time and space to deliver a cross in the Fulham half but didn't get it off the ground and it just found Inamoto.

He quickly looked up and played a great ball through to Boa Morte who was tripped by Marsden as he sprinted into the penalty area.

There was no question over the award of the penalty which Saha rolled down the middle. Niemi almost kept it out but it bounced just over his trailing leg.

It almost got worse on 68 minutes when Niemi produced a superb double save from Boa Morte.

After tipping over the second effort the resulting corner saw a shot have to be quickly blocked before another corner presented Malbranque with a chance from very close range at the far post which he lifted over the bar.

Saha, Boa Morte and Malbranque all came close again while late on Agustin Delgado almost got on the end of a Beattie cross.

The Pompey result made it a Merry Christmas for Saints fans, but the performance against Arsenal on Monday night will have to be relied on to provide a Happy New Year.