The pre-match build-up may not have centred around on-pitch matters, but the ruthless performance of Man City at Craven Cottage this afternoon soon put paid to any thoughts Mark Hughes may have had of vengeance.
City came into this game having failed to score in their previous two games and with just three goals in their last five. Within half an hour, though, the Carlos Tevez-inspired visitors were three-nil up and coasting as their former boss (and the on-looking Diego Maradona) saw Fulham played off the park.
More that a hint of bitterness hung over this game as Hughes spoke of his treatment at the hands of the Abu Dhabi-owned club, following last season’s sacking:
They made the change with the view that they wanted to accelerate the process of getting success. That doesn’t seem to have happened. I know what I left behind, that the club and the group of players I had there was good enough to hit the targets I was given. I knew they had to spend significantly more money last summer – that opportunity was going to be given to myself. It wasn’t.
With two goals and an assist, Tevez also bagged the 3 Bonus Points, boosting his Fantasy Premier League tally to 85 points and making him the third-highest scoring player in the game. The irony that Hughes was the man who brought him to the club will not have been lost on many as Fulham, deprived of their two main strikers through injury, struggled to make an impact. A deflected Zoltan Gera strike offered little comfort for the home side, but was at least enough to prevent City chalking up their fourth clean sheet on the trot.
In the closest-run season for a long time, City now sit just three points off the top, in spite of recent criticism over their playing style. Mark Hughes, on the other hand, sits fourth from bottom, with only goal difference keeping Fulham out of the drop zone.
What a difference a year makes.
