Alain Goma was heartened by Fulham’s defensive response to shock of conceding four goals against Blackburn Rovers as the Whites kept a clean sheet at Anfield.
The French defender admitted there was plenty of soul searching around the squad after Fulham found themselves on the wrong end of a seven-goal thrilling against struggling Rovers, but told the club’s official website he was delighted with the way Fulham managed to nullify Liverpool.
“When you do something like conceding four goals, you have to be professional and react. You have to look at yourselves in the mirror and work out what went wrong. We had the reaction that we wanted at Liverpool. It’s always important that you bounce back after a defeat like that, and I think that everyone thought very hard about their own performance.
We defended well, especially in the midfield where we stopped a lot of their passes getting through to the strikers. We showed a lot of determination and we had a few chances to score as well – unfortunately we didn’t take one of them but we had a good game. Because we defended well in the first half, the Liverpool fans weren’t very patient and started moaning, so I think the confidence of their players dropped. That’s always a good thing if you can go somewhere like that and quieten down the fans.
I think we were a bit unlucky to concede the penalty – I’m not sure that it hit his arm. It was a tough decision against us. We had been defending well and then to concede that penalty could have been very demoralising. But we are lucky to have a goalkeeper with the experience of Edwin behind us – he took his time getting ready and then made a fantastic save.”
Goma is already anticipating the weekend meeting with Charlton, which presents a real opportunity for Fulham to consolidate a spot in the top half of the table.
“In our minds, we want to finish as high as possible. We missed a very good opportunity against Blackburn – we can’t let ourselves miss this one. If we want to do something this season we have to win this game. Charlton are a very good side. They play very well as a unit without having big star names in their side, and have a lot of spirit. They have been very successful this season. In these sort of games it’s important to score first. I would expect a very tight game and if they get the first goal it will be very difficult to break them down.”
