Fulham blow Toon away in second half blitz

Clint Dempsey hit a second-half hat-trick to lead his Fulham side to an unlikely 5-2 victory over Newcastle United at Craven Cottage in one of the most eye-catching football scores of the day.

It was a typical case of a game of two halves as Fulham wrestled the initiative from Newcastle after a one-sided first half. The visitors had no answer to Fulham’s second-half onslaught and conceded five goals after the break, including the first Premier League hat-trick by an American.

There was no sign of the drama to come after a first half dominated by the visitors. Fulham never got going and could have gone behind on a number of occasions. Newcastle finally took the lead just before the break when Danny Guthrie scored from long range. Guthrie’s screamer was the least Newcastle deserved. At that stage the soccer betting was heavily in favour of the vistors.

The game ultimately hinged on a clumsy foul just minutes into the second period. Davide Santon brought Damien Duff down in the box and Danny Murphy hit home the resulting penalty.

That goal sparked the home side into life and there was no stopping them. Dempsey scored his first after Bobby Zamora’s shot was saved and grabbed a second six minutes later from just inside the area.

Fulham were rampant and made it four from the spot. Tim Krul brought down Andrew Johnson and Zamora duly converted the penalty.

Newcastle did pull one back through Hatem Ben Arfa, but it was too little, too late and Dempsey completed the scoring and his hat-trick from Murphy’s long ball a minute from time.

Dempsey’s treble took his Premier League goal tally to nine and saw Fulham move up to 12th in the table.

Newcastle were left to rue a horror second half as they failed to capitalise on slips ups around them in the table.