Thomas Sorensen's bad luck gave Fulham their winning goal, but Martin Jol was full of praise for the man he signed to replace Bobby Zamora, Pavel Pogrebnyak, who opened the scoring on his debut and was a constant threat until he went off with an ankle injury after an hour.
The Russian international fitted in seamlessly, having met his team-mates only on Thursday after signing from Stuttgart, and fired home from 15 yards after controlling John Arne Riise's drive into box after 16 minutes. Twelve minutes later, Clint Dempsey's superb 30-yard shot rebounded off the crossbar to hit the Stoke goalkeeper, Sorensen, and go in off his back. It turned out to be the winning goal, Ryan Shawcross pulling one back for the visitors, who have now lost four successive league matches, 12 minutes from time.
Jol said: "He worked well and was fit. We don't have a lot of No9s at this club and he was keen to start. That was a positive thing and it meant Clint could play in his [favoured] position. You always have to wait and see how somebody will do when they come from abroad. In the first 10 minutes or so he realised that this was a different league to what he is used to."
The Stoke manager, Tony Pulis, had a different view on Pogrebnyak, and believed he could have been sent off for a clattering challenge on Wilson Palacios. "Last week we had Robert Huth sent off for a challenge where he is going in and has pulled his two feet away and had both feet facing the ground," he said. "We have seen a challenge from the Russian lad on Palacios where he catches Wilson on the knee. The referee didn't see it.
"The kid doesn't even get a yellow card. The inconsistency this season is poor. I am disappointed. Last week we had a player sent off. This week, for a worse challenge, the lad doesn't even get a yellow card."
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