FOR FULHAM, encouragingly, there is plainly life after Jimmy Bullard, not that they don’t, very clearly, miss the former favourite’s exuberant presence in midfield.

Bullard has announced that had he not been allowed to leave, he would have gone on strike. That would have been a sour reward for a club that put their faith in him and, after being absent for 15 months with injury, revitalised his career. Bullard is now at Hull City. Without him, there is no doubt Fulham’s midfield simply is not the same. Dickson Etuhu, a modest footballer, is hardly the answer.

Fulham were certainly helped to their emphatic victory by some astonishing errors in Portsmouth’s defence. Twice in the game, they parted like the waters of the Red Sea, or perhaps one should say the Blue Sea, allowing Fulham to score with ease. How Tony Adams, the Pompey manager, must have suffered on the bench, as a centre-half once so commanding and so dominant. Reports after the game that he was considering his future just three months into the job and after taking only one point from seven games are perhaps understandable.

In the second minute, with a beautiful piece of trickery on the right flank, Jermaine Pennant left Paul Konchesky standing, then crossed accurately into the box, where Kanu untypically miskicked. But it was Pennant, after 84 minutes, who set up Portsmouth’s only goal with a free kick from the left converted by David Nugent’s header. It was surprising that Portsmouth made so little use of Pennant’s talents.

Roy Hodgson, Fulham’s manager, was particularly pleased with the displays of strikers Andy Johnson and Erik Nevland, the latter who came on as a substitute on 63 minutes to give Fulham’s attack an edge and menace it lacked with a disappointing Bobby Zamora. Hodgson admitted Zamora was lacking in confidence, and Nevland, who scored vital goals last season, had looked so good in training that “he’s put thoughts in to my mind, when should I play him?”

He sympathised with Adams, saying a manager could not indefinitely tell a team it had been unlucky. “They begin to doubt your sanity, and think you’re a long-playing record.” As for Adams, he said: “We made mistakes defensively. We gambled on a few offsides and tried to find impossible lines.”

Fulham went ahead with a move begun by Simon Davies, splendidly versatile on Fulham’s right wing. He found Clint Dempsey, whose through ball sent Johnson past a scattered defence, to make it 1-0 on 14 minutes.

Five minutes later, Sean Davis had a low shot saved by the diving Mark Schwarzer, but on 32 minutes another embarrassing error in the Portsmouth defence, when Sylvain Distin missed the ball, enabled Johnson to latch on to Davies’s through ball, only for David James to deflect his shot over the bar.

Portsmouth retaliated when five minutes later Davis had a long shot turned over the top by Schwarzer, and two minutes

later, from Pennant’s left-wing corner, Younes Kaboul headed against the bar. That could have made a dramatic change to the game, yet, on 71 minutes, Davies’ through ball sent Nevland beyond the porous Pompey defence and he tucked the ball inside the left-hand post.He scored again on 80 minutes, pivoting on Davies’s pass and beating James.

Nugent’s goal was scant consolation for Adams’s team, though a right-footed wallop from Peter Crouch should have brought a second but for Schwarzer’s fine save.

FULHAM: Schwarzer 7, Pantsil 7, Hughes 6, Hangeland 6, Konchesky 6, Dempsey 7 (Gera 90min), Etuhu 6, Murphy 7, Davies 8, Zamora 5 (Nevland 63min), A Johnson 7

PORTSMOUTH: James 6, G Johnson 6, Kaboul 5 (Pamarot 76min), Distin 5, Hreidarsson 6, Pennant 7, Davis 7, Mullins 6, A Traore 6 (Utaka 63min), Kanu 6 (Nugent h-t, 7), Crouch 7