“I THINK when you’re down at the bottom, it does go against you somewhat,” said West Ham’s manager Alan Curbishley, generously. Although he insisted that he had not had a plain view of West Ham’s late, highly-contentious winning goal, he felt from what he did see, there was “a clear contact”.

This was hardly the opinion of Fulham’s outraged manager, Roy Hodgson, who said of Nolberto Solano’s winner: “It’s a clear foul and the goal should have been disallowed. When you go in with studs up in the goalkeeper’s face, you’re very lucky if the referee says it’s a correct goal.”

The winner came in the 87th minute. When West Ham right-back Lucas Neill put the ball across, Luis Boa Morte, deployed up front yesterday, chested the ball down.

Solano challenged the Fulham keeper Antti Niemi just as he seemed about to seize the ball and propelled it into the net from what seemed a combination of thigh and elbow.

This defeat makes the spectre of relegation loom still more alarmingly over Fulham. Hodgson felt they deserved at least a draw: “I thought it was an even game. If anything we had very good chances to score. Of course, playing in these games, you have to take the chances and we didn’t do that.”

But if Hodgson was satisfied with his team’s performance, he was arguably in a minority. Overall, it was a deeply dismal, mediocre game with few moments of illumination.

West Ham certainly made more chances, largely in the first 20 minutes. After 12 minutes, Mark Noble, who showed pace and initiative – Curbishley felt West Ham’s revised tactics helped such midfield players to impress – crossed from the right. Carlton Cole, who looked formidable for those 20 minutes, got his head strongly to the ball, but Niemi hurled himself across his goal to seize the ball in mid-air.

Seven minutes later, Cole ran clear and seemed about to score but Paul Konchesky had enterprisingly and intelligently seen the danger and frustrated him with a desperate tackle. A minute more and Cole was firing a strong right-footed shot just over the bar.

Fulham, who for the bulk of the game used Jimmy Bullard farther forward than usual, had only a couple of indifferent shots straight at Robert Green.

You can understand why Fulham did push Bullard forward, though it is hardly the ideal position of this vigorous midfield player, who likes to pick the ball up behind the attack and drive forward at speed. But with Brian McBride, so cruelly injured last August, plainly not match fit – you did wonder why he was kept on the field throughout – reinforcement was plainly necessary. After 75 minutes, Fulham brought on their latest American recruit, the tall and well-built attacker Eddie Johnson, who made scant impression, booting his solitary chance well wide.

Early in the second half, Fulham’s new centre-back, Brede Hangeland, headed over the West Ham bar, but it was a rare opportunity. There was an anxious moment for Fulham when a careless backpass by Aaron Hughes looked as if it might elude Niemi, but he managed to kick the ball away at full stretch.

Fulham might indeed have won just before Solano’s winner. Bullard, who had raised hopes of the kind of free kick goal he so splendidly scored to beat Aston Villa here, had a similar chance from the edge of the box, but this one flew straight into the West Ham wall. Yet when he was cleverly sent through by Leon Andreasen, he was thwarted by an exceptionally brave and athletic save by Green, who dashed out of goal to dive at his feet.

That seemed to be that, but almost immediately thereafter came West Ham’s winner. To rub salt into Fulham’s wounds, Andreasen, protesting about Solano’s goal, got a second yellow card and was sent off.

It had been a game of often stupefying dullness. Happier memories were elicited before the kickoff when there was a minute’s applause to commemorate the death 15 years ago today of England’s 1966 World Cup captain, the peerless Bobby Moore, who played for so many years at West Ham but ended his career at Fulham.

Match stats

Star man: Carlton Cole (West Ham)

Player ratings: Fulham: Niemi 7, Stalteri 6, Hughes 6, Hangeland 6, Konchesky 7, Kamara 6, Andreasen 6, Bullard 7, Murphy 6, Dempsey 6 (Johnson 76min), McBride 5 West Ham: Green 7, Neill 6, Ferdinand 6, Upson 6, McCartney 6, Ljungberg 6 (Spector 90min), Mullins 6, Faubert 6 (Solano 63min), Noble 7, Boa Morte 6, Cole 7 (Ashton 80min)

Scorer: West Ham: Solano 87