Fulham and Manchester City fought out an entertaining 3-3 draw at Craven Cottage in the Premier League. Simon Davies, Hameur Bouazza and Danny Murphy were on target for Fulham, with Martin Petrov [2] and Emile Mpenza for City.

The encounter was as characterised by its poor defending and goalkeeping as it was by its goals, with five of the six goals easily preventable.

Davies put Fulham in front on 13 minutes with an excellent near-post header from Bouazza's cross to cap an excellent counter-attacking move the Welshman himself initiated. Clint Dempsey also went close for the hosts after good work from David Healy but, as ever this season, Fulham threw away an early lead when they allowed Petrov in twice in ten minutes.

The warning sign came on 25 minutes when the Bulgaria winger was found by a clever near-post flick from Brazilian Elano, Petrov firing over when he should have at least made Antti Niemi work. And ten minutes later he was given space on the left again, this time picking up a Hamann pass and running at Fulham's static defence before poking a daisy-cutter between the legs of Carlos Bocanegra, whose presence perhaps put off Niemi who still should have done far better than helping the ball on its way into the back of the net.

Hamann went close to the newly-confident visitors soon afterwards, his rising drive flying inches wide of Niemi's right-hand post, but Fulham shaded the first half on possession and should have gone into the break ahead.

Whites boss Lawrie Sanchez was forced to make a half-time change, Davies complaining of a migraine and replaced by Diomansy Kamara, whose touch was hit-and-miss but caused City problems with his pace and direct running.

And they went ahead soon afterwards, Kamara brought down by Richard Dunne after nutmegging the Ireland defender, allowing Hameur Bouazza to rifle home a vicious, curling free-kick that the poorly-organised City wall did little to resist.

But the lead barely lasted a minute, Mpenza flicking a long ball onto Petrov, Fulham's defenders again backing off and allowing him to shoot, an excellent stop by Niemi rendered pointless as Mpenza was allowed to drift unchecked to head the rebound in off the bar.

And it was 3-2 to City with an hour played, Petrov completing a one-two with Elano before skipping around a rather slow Chris Baird and drilling a low shot past Niemi at his near post, the Finland keeper again culpable.

Sanchez lay his cards on the table by throwing on Seol Ki-Hyeon and Murphy, the pair having immediate effect when Seol flicked a long ball on to Kamara, who was in an offside position but let the ball run for Murphy, who finished low past Kasper Schmeichel to level the match.

Murphy almost immediately put them ahead, shooting over from a great position after good work from Kamara, and while there were a few hairy moments for both sides late on, notably Schmeichel's uneasiness at dealing with crosses and a free kick to City fired wide by Petrov in an inexplicable sixth minute of injury-time, a draw was a fair result that puts City second for now and keeps Fulham hovering nervously above the drop zone.

Reda Maher / Eurosport