Roy Hodgson, Fulham’s manager was “extremely disappointed, devastated”. Roy Keane, his Sunderland counterpart, was anything but triumphalist after his team’s success. “Our overall performance wasn’t great. Our passing in the first half wasn’t up to scratch but we scored at the right time. We huffed and puffed. We didn’t have any quality.”

Keane was remarkably generous to a Fulham side still embroiled in a desperate relegation battle. “Fulham have been as unlucky as any club with injuries and decisions against them. If you look at the teams today, there’s nothing in it. I think they looked the better team. Fulham deserve a lot of credit. I’ve got great respect for Fulham.”

Perhaps this, and the fact that the Cottagers still have at least a mathematical chance after yesterday’s result of salvation, may console Hodgson a little. “I can only hope you’ll allow me to grieve,” he said at the end of his press conference. But he admitted: “Unfortunately, we didn’t create enough clear-cut chances and unfortunately, we made bad mistakes for the goals.” One Fulham player you could hardly blame, but only applaud, was Jimmy Bullard, whose absence through injury for so much of the season has surely contributed greatly to Fulham’s present plight. Starting on the left flank rather than in his usual positions in central midfield or behind the strikers, he switched briefly to the right flank after half-time, then went definitively into the middle. He never stopped running, and never stopped trying, never stopped doing intelligent things. If only Fulham had half a dozen like him.

Hodgson felt his side had much the better of the first half and hardly deserved to go in at half-time a goal down. The fact was that whatever their territorial supremacy in the first half, they were something of a toothless tiger. During that first period, they scarcely made a single decent chance. On 11 minutes, when Paul Konchesky found Bullard on the left, Brian McBride got his head to the curling centre, but with insufficient force to give Sunderland’s Scottish keeper Craig Gordon any trouble.

Indeed, until Sunderland scored just before the break, they themselves, though seldom threatening, had the best chance. On 18 minutes the ball broke out on the right flank to Phil Bardsley, who had space and time, but he blazed the ball high over.

On 45 minutes Sunderland scored a crucial and psychologically significant goal. After a corner on the left, the ball came out to Daryl Murphy on the right. He curled it in and Danny Collins, who had come enterprisingly upfield, reached it before towering centre-back Brede Hange-land to head past Kasey Keller.

At the interval Keane took off his right-winger Carlos Edwards and put on Michael Chopra, who obliged him on 54 minutes by scoring Sunderland’s second and, in Hodgson’s view, demoralising goal.

A long clearance from Gordon was nodded on by Kenwyne Jones and Chopra delicately dinked it over the head of Keller into the Fulham net. “You could say the goal was maybe a bit of good fortune,” admitted Keane with typical honesty, “but he was there.” To their credit, Fulham did pull a goal back, on 74 minutes, just four after Grant Leadbitter had tested Keller with a deceptive lob that he stretched to turn over the top. Then one Fulham substitute attacker served another, and the score was 2-1. Clint Dempsey passed to David Healy who, so prolific for Northern Ireland but so seldom a scorer for Fulham, curled the ball perfectly from 25 yards wide of Gordon with his left foot.

It was, however, no more than a false dawn for Fulham. Just two minutes later, when Dean Whitehead turned the ball back, Jones, increasingly dangerous in the second half, pivoted to strike it past Keller.

Perhaps things might have been different had Fulham equalised early in the second half. When McBride found Diomansy Kamara, Gordon managed desperately to scramble the ball away. Then came Chopra’s goal and - though Fulham by the end had right-winger Simon Davies playing right-back and four men in attack - the die was inexorably cast.