Dickson Etuhu in ref blast after spotkick miss

HANDY RESCUE ... Kyle Walker slides in to assist Brad Friedel with his left arm

DICKSON ETUHU last night blasted referee Peter Walton as Fulham crashed again.

The midfielder dismissed Walton's apology for missing a clear handball in a dramatic climax to this London derby.

Tottenham right-back Kyle Walker clearly cradled the ball during a goalmouth scramble, with Martin Jol's strugglers pushing for a deserved equaliser.

The 90th-minute flashpoint came as the visitors survived a second-half onslaught and Fulham failed to find a way through to ease the pressure on their Dutch boss.

Etuhu rapped: "It was handball. I was right there and he handled it.

"The ref knows. I had a word with him and he said 'Listen, I didn't see it and if it was a handball then I'm sorry'.

"And I said to him 'Sorry isn't good enough'.

"It was the defining moment. If we had got a penalty, we'd probably have got the goal and it would have been tight at the end.

"The way it ended, we got punished with a third goal as we had to go for it. It's hard to take.

"We deserved to win the game the way we played. We were the better team. We did the right things and we are heading in the right direction. I'm sure we'll start moving up the table soon." Jol insisted Fulham were 'hard done by', as a pulsating game reached a tense finale.

Stand-in Spurs chief Joe Jordan admitted his team rode their luck, while insisting Fulham fluffed too many chances to blame defeat on a missed spot-kick.

Jordan said: "We didn't expect the game to go like that in the second half.

"In the first half we played well and deservedly went in front. The second half was the complete opposite. For the last half-hour, not just 10 minutes, we had to hang on in there.

"We had to show determination and spirit and had to be resilient.

"The third goal was a bonus. We didn't see that coming. If anyone was going to score, it felt as if it would be Fulham."

Jordan will wait for the result to sink in before speaking to manager Harry Redknapp, who would have suffered while watching at home during his recovery from heart surgery.

The Scot added: "It was a good tester for Harry, that last half-hour. If he passes that, which I'm sure he will, he'll be back early.

"He has another two weeks to recover. We treated him very nicely in that first half but we took some punishment in the second.

"We'll take a deep breath, settle down and have a chat in the week.

"You can see the improvement we've made. We're a team which has played some excellent football this year, which is why we've had a good run. But it wasn't excellent here. We had to dig in. You're not going to get anywhere in the game unless you show that and we did show that.

"That, and a bit of good good fortune, got us through.

"I don't think it was a penalty. There were a number of other areas you could look at when they had chances and didn't take them. They'll be disappointed."

That underestimated how Jol is feeling after seeing his team lose valiantly once more.

Fulham remain rooted in the bottom half of the table and unable to generate any consistency, after a rare away win last weekend and now a rare home defeat.

Jol stated: "I felt after the first half, of course, that a good result would be a draw. And I feel we deserved at least a point.

"We didn't play them off the park but we played well and put them under pressure.

"This isn't the first time we have suffered late on. We missed two sitters in the 89th and 90th minutes against Everton — and then they scored.

"Tottenham scored three times from eight attempts. We had 23 good attempts.

"We felt hard done by with the penalty situation."

Man of the Match Brad Friedel admitted he was the busiest player on the pitch.

Spurs' American keeper said: "That wasn't really bread and butter stuff. It was a bit hectic, second half.

"We got ourselves in a good position first half but they came at us. Scary moments at the end but it was a great win.

"This shows we can do some of the dirty stuff in games as well.

"I don't know how much Harry Redknapp would have enjoyed those last 15 minutes. I always think it's easier to go through that when you're actually involved, rather than watching from afar."