As well as the Thameside location that Craven Cottage shares with the Tate Modern gallery, this evening brought some similarly challenging work for the SW6 audience to appreciate.

The bizarre sculptures of Louise Bourgeois may be wowing them a few miles upriver at Southwark, but our own avant garde exhibition continues to divide critical opinion.

"Winning ugly" was the refrain heard from players and pundits alike, but while the latter sneered at our lack of invention and general competency, the travelling punters seemed happy enough at the final whistle.

After the alleged worst performance in living memory at home to Liverpool, similar hyperbole labelled this game the most rotten 90 minutes overall in a similar time period. 

We beg to differ - the Palace "paper dart" home game and Watford away last season were hardly re-enactments of Real Madrid versus Eintracht Frankfurt 1960....  

Barren though it was for the most part, we've seen quite enough brave and memorable defeats on our travels not to look this gift horse in the mouth -certainly we played better against both Blackburn and Arsenal for a whole point gained. 

Hopefully this will be something of a watershed, as we at last shored up our leaks and recorded a clean sheet away from home after thirteen months of futile efforts.

And in this pantomime season, we found that the streets of London were paved with gold, once Smith had toppled over like a chopped beanstalk and principal boy Barton had his wish granted.

Once the short-term feel-good factor of this fortunate three points wears off though, we can reflect on it being no more than the minimum requirement for this fixture - failure to do so last season weakened Roeder's grasp on the tiller significantly and Sanchez has done little to improve on Coleman's muddle.

Quite simply we now have to build from this, having stripped things back to primer and ultimately proved ourselves capable of picking up the pieces left by opponents at the death to claim the win. 

Those supporters who provided grand backing here will only feast on scraps for so long, before the justifiable quibbles over selection and style manifest themselves.

The transient excitement of a last minute winner doesn't obscure the instantly forgettable ninety minutes that had gone before it. An important win rather not an entertaining one then - but that's where we currently are.

Poor passing and sloppy defending went unpunished by two sides whose first objective was not to concede. We said "first", but such was the wretchedness of both attacks that "only" was as apt.

The two main international strikers on show were as rotten as each other - the Windsor Park goal machine Healy again unable to reproduce his potency at club level.

And as for Super Eagle Oba, most of what he did in this match was just annoying - including his slow march from the field when substituted, for which he should have been fined. Those who jeered his replacing and shouted his name as he dawdled off merely fell into the same trap as Oba: - the club is bigger than him (or Owen for that matter). 

Viduka's introduction provided both a visible target for Milner to aim at and also something resembling a partner for Smith, who duly made the run that brought forth the pass and led to that vital spot kick award. 

The Australian also showed in a shimmy or two a damn sight more class and subtlety than anything else on the park - save for N'Zogbia when he threw off the shackles and bombed on.

But....we got the goal that ensures memories of the scoreline will live on long after the non-event of a match have faded.

Barton's first strike was reward for persistence rather than inspiration, with too much of his passing of the hoofed variety. Hopefully that goal will push him on to being more effective and influential.

In the last couple of weeks we've begun to show signs of spirit, competency and organisation - as well as some good fortune. However, the last thing we need is anyone banging on about anything more than the immediate tasks facing us. 

Even allowing for the dictats of sports editors and club publication strictures, the utterances of Geremi and others after the Arsenal draw about "weathering storms" and "answering critics" were as concerning as they were inaccurate. 

Let's try and keep the hackneyed old guff about cup runs or anything else to a minimum and stop short of celebrating mediocrity. 

What we're now seeing is the bare minimum of acceptability - we're now proving we're neither great nor awful, which is precisely why we're in mid table.  

Avoid wild mood swings in either direction and leave the over-reaction to outsiders. Men at work.