Fulham 1-1 Blackburn Rovers

David Hoilett suffered a horrible head injury in the closing stages as Blackburn held a frustrated Fulham to a 1-1 draw at the Cottage.

After West Bromwich Albion's win at Norwich earlier in the day, these sides were left propping up the rest at the foot of the Premier League table, with both still in search of their first win of the season.
In a tentative beginning, it was the hosts who enjoyed the better of the play, with Damien Duff finding acres of space on the right flank but his crossing was off target and Fulham were made to pay the price for their profligacy in the final third when Blackburn struck with their first real attack.
Hoilett, whose pace was a constant threat on the break, found space on the left hand side and was able to lay the ball back to former Barcelona striker Ruben Rochina who aimed an arrowlike drive into the top corner of the net to give Rovers a shock lead just after the half hour.
Fulham gave a debut to new £10.6million signing Bryan Ruiz but the Costa Rican looked off the pace. However, his strike partner Bobby Zamora was a little livelier and it was the former Spurs man who levelled for Martin Jol's men just six minutes later. Rovers defender Gael Givet, who had a superb second half after moving into the centre of defence, was outmuscled in the left back position by Zamora who steadied himself to curl beyond Paul Robinson.
Fulham dominated the second half in terms of possession, but failed to really test Robinson, who had just two real saves to make from Clint Dempsey and Danny Murphy.
In the end, the visitors almost stole all three points when Hoilett latched on to an error from Steve Sidwell to beat Mark Schwarzer to the ball outside of the box but his header was cleared off the line by Stephen Kelly. Not that the young winger saw it as he was left concussed and needing lengthy treatment on the pitch after he clashed heads with the Australian goalkeeper.
The result will be a real boost for Steve Kean whose job had been the talk of the Sunday papers this morning. However, there will be more frustration for Martin Jol as his side again failed to fire domestically.