Chelsea comeback to win

Roy Hodgson had the worst possible start to his Fulham managerial career as he watched his team squander a 1-0 lead to local rivals Chelsea at Craven Cottage. Goals from Michael Ballack and Salomon Kalou were enough to beat the Cottagers.

Hodgson's team made an encouraging start against a depleted Chelsea and had a 10th minute boost when Moritz Volz was tripped in the area by Joe Cole and Danny Murphy scored from the spot.

Fulham again proved vulnerable when leading, however, and nine minutes after the restart Alex headed a Shaun Wright-Phillips corner back across goal and Salomon Kalou headed home.

Eight minutes later Chelsea were in front when Clint Dempsey was penalized for tugging Michael Ballack's shirt in the penalty box and the German, captaining the team, converted the spot-kick.

Ballack: we needed this result

"It was a little bit loud in the dressing room but we needed this result," Ballack said. "We couldn't keep playing like we did in the first half so we changed a lot. We put pressure on Fulham and it was better for us.

"It's a great pleasure for me to captain Chelsea but it's more important we come through this difficult period because we have a lot of injured players."