Fulham assistant manager Steve Kean admits he was disappointed not to claim all three points from Sunday’s meeting with Birmingham City – but believes the Whites showed their battling qualities to fight back for a point.
The Fulham number two told the club’s official website today:
“We would have been happy with a point before the game. But with the way it worked out we’re a bit disappointed. Looking back on it now, I would say that it was points dropped. Keeping a clean sheet was our first aim. We know that we’re going to score goals because we’ve got enough creative and pacey players in the team to trouble people. The thing we’ve always got to focus on, especially away from home, is not conceding.
After we went ahead our next target was to hold on until half time and keep possession of the ball. But we were caught by a sucker punch, it was a quick free kick, we switched off and found ourselves going into half time level when we deserved to be up by two goals. We had to regroup and accept that we switched off for their goal. It wasn’t a case of everyone having their heads in the hands at half time, they were obviously disappointed but we had to put that behind us and think about how we were going to get something out of the game.
We were probably a little bit fortunate with the second goal because it might have been argued that it was a foul but, having said that, there were other times in the game when play should have been waved on but it wasn’t – so things evened themselves out.”
Kean believes that the recent results away from home have shown that Fulham’s previously dismal away record is now a thing of the past.
“Chris has said all along that he wants us to be more resilient and we’ve shown that we can go to places like Tottenham and Birmingham and come back with something. We’re not going to be pushovers away from home.”
