Two of the most attacking sides in the Premiership conspired to cancel each other out on Sunday afternoon and produce a turgid goalless draw.

After the hype surrounding Liverpool lad Robbie Fowler's debut for Leeds, it was a case of waiting for god' to produce the goods and being mightily disappointed when he didn't.

Meanwhile Fulham's front men Louis Saha, Barry Hayles and Luis Boa Morte were no better at their end of the field.

There were very few shots on goal by either side and those that did come failed to seri-ously test either Edwin van der Sar or Nigel Martyn.

Much of the action if you can call it that was confined to the midfield, where limited space and combative tackles prevented the ball from being distributed effectively.

It was a frustrating sight indeed to see Fulham and Leeds usually such sublime passing sides reduced to 11-a-side pinball, where the play pinged between opposing players with tedious regularity.

Fulham dominated what possession there was, but again lacked the finish in front of goal.

The closest they came to scoring was in the 14th minute, when Steed Malbranque dispossessed Seth Johnsen on the edge of the box and released the ball to Boa Morte. The Portugese international hit his shot past Martyn, but Leeds' defender Gary Kelly was there to clear the ball off the line.

Fulham's only other serious threat to the visitors' goal came on the hour, when John Collins' free-kick was well saved by Martyn and, shortly afterwards, Andy Melville skied a shot over the bar from a good position.

But at least he was prepared to have a shot Saha and, less often, Hayles nearly always looked to take an extra touch, or perform an added twist, before inevitably running into Leeds' solid defence.

In the closing minutes, Fowler came close to marking his debut with a goal, but his close-range volley was well smothered by Van der Sar.

So on a hellish afternoon for football purists, there was to be no divine intervention by the former Anfield favourite known on The Kop as god and Fulham fans were left praying their strikers might one day take a short cut to goal.

December 5, 2001 17:00