Lawrie Sanchez felt his Fulham side should have come away with a point following the 3-1 defeat to Arsenal.
The Gunners opened the scoring after just four minutes and created several opportunities to add to their lead before half-time.
Fulham weathered the storm and produced an improved performance after the break, but Sanchez feels his side paid the price for being too positive after Simon Davies’ equaliser in the 78th minute.
“To come away with a 3-1 defeat, when you worked as hard as we did, is very cruel,” Sanchez told Sky Sports.
“I’ve said to my players they were eight minutes away from what would have been a fantastic result, and we deserved it on the basis of the second half.
“In the first half we should have been out of the equation, but because they didn’t put us out of the equation, I said to the players that ‘now is your chance to show us what you can do’.
“And we saw the two sides of Fulham, the side that can win games and the side that ultimately shot ourselves in the foot.
“I was happy to be only 1-0 down at half-time but I thought we ground them down in the second half and thought there was only going to be one winner at 1-1
“But that was our mistake. We went hell for leather and got caught by a very good side.”
Fulham have just two games of the season remaining to avoid relegation, but they are still one point above the bottom three and Sanchez is hopeful.
He said: “I hope it’s just three more points. We could have put it to bed today but we didn’t.”
