It may be an inappropriate cliche in the week Sam Allardyce goes under the knife, but the least you expect from his Blackburn Rovers is a little blood and guts. However, Blackburn offered little resistance as Fulham recorded their first victory against the Lancashire club since 2005 thanks to a second-half brace from Clint Dempsey after Erik Nevland had given them a half-time lead.

Allardyce’s wife Lynn has confiscated her husband’s mobile phone ahead of his angioplasty this weekend, which may explain how his assistant, Neil McDonald, managed to field a daring 4-4-2 formation away from Ewood Park. Franco di Santo partnered Jason Roberts in attack and the Argentinian very nearly rewarded McDonald’s adventure in the second minute when he raced onto Keith Andrews’ well-measured through ball, however Mark Schwarzer raced from his line to extinguish the danger.

Looking for their first win since last month’s 3-1 defeat of Liverpool Fulham could have offered more in attack, their only notable effort before the opener coming in the seventh minute. A fine pass from Jonathan Greening broke to Damien Duff on the edge of the area and the Ireland international lofted a cross to the back post that Dempsey, regardless of the presence of Andrews, should have managed to get a cleaner connection upon.

There was a little more endeavour at the other end, but not much. El Hadji Diouf, operating on the left, found the space to cross and when the ball broke off Roberts, Andrews – who seemed to find himself in the few places the action was occurring in the first half – should have done better than scoop it over the bar.

Two minutes before the break Fulham, with their first shot on target, were ahead. Erik Nevland rounded off a splendid move that began with the Norwegian playing a neat one-two with Bobby Zamora and moving the ball wide for Duff. The winger played the ball back into the striker’s path and he rolled it under the advancing Paul Robinson.

Just like the opening half Fulham’s first chance after the break fell to the head of Dempsey, and just like the first half the American failed to make a reasonable connection on the ball – this time weakly heading a Greening free-kick wide when the former West Bromwich Albion midfielder found him unmarked at the far post.

Chris Baird drew a save from Robinson in the 57th minute and the erstwhile England No1 very nearly allowed the tricky bouncing effort to rebound to Zamora, but gathered at the second attempt.

Use of the head had not been working for Dempsey so he switched to his feet and duly doubled Fulham’s lead with his right foot, getting the final touch to a shot from Duff that, having picked up a deflection from Pascal Chimbonda, may have snuck past Robinson on its own. Four minutes later Nevland should have sealed the win after another swift one-two, this time with Dempsey, but he scuffed his 12-yard shot wide.

A surprisingly timid Blackburn never looked like salvaging even a point, though Chimbonda should have scored but he failed to make a clean connection on a mis-hit from Andrews. The Irishman’s half-hearted challenge on Dempsey in the 89th minute summed up their performance, and was insufficient to prevent the American converting Simon Davies’ cross.

Premier LeagueFulhamBlackburn RoversRoy HodgsonMikey Staffordguardian.co.uk