Martin Jol joked that he’d have liked his Fulham side to have put eight or nine past QPR this afternoon.
The striking thing was that such was Fulham’s dominance that such a scoreline would certainly not have been a travesty. Jol’s decision to ditch his 4-2-3-1 formation to play hat-trick hero Andy Johnson alongside Bobby Zamora sparked a flurry of goals as Rangers were beaten before half-time.
I would have liked to have had eight or nine, but 3-0 would have been ok, as well as winning 1-0 or 2-1. We had three draws here on the trot, and with the Europa League that’s four, which is probably two too many.
They are a good footballing team, so sometimes that can be a disadvantage. Of course we took the initiative but sometimes we let them play as well to get more space in front with our four attacking players and I think we did well in that respect.
We played 4-4-2 today with two wide players who can come in and I think that caused them a problem, and with the two full-backs overlapping as well, especially John Arne Riise. I’ve been here for three or four months and this is what we try to do.
Jol was delighted with Johnson’s return to goalscoring form, with his treble following a match-winning brace in Odense.
I was very happy for him, and happy for us as well. Of course he scored the goal in Europe but on the other hand it doesn’t matter who scores the goals, we need to get the result. Maybe today we get too many and in other games we don’t get the goals we need so that was the only problem.
The only negative about Andy was that when I was in England before, he scored 20 or so goals and 10 were penalties. That was good, but I told him: ‘I think you’re capable of scoring at least 10-15 goals,’ and I hope he will prove me right.
Jol denied reports of a bust-up between him and Bobby Zamora, confirming that the striker had been unable to train in the week due to the Motspur Park bug.
He was ill, not even on the training ground. Then one day before we left for Denmark he came to the training ground and I told him ‘I think you better stay and do some sessions’, because I still had Andy Johnson and that proved to be enough up front because he scored two goals.
Nowadays with all these agents, if you leave someone out they will tell their agent and then their agent will tell you. Bobby is OK, the only thing is Bobby is a sensitive person. Sometimes you leave him out. If he’s ill in bed, you can’t expect me to take him, and he maybe doesn’t like that. There was no bust-up.
I have bust ups with young players, I tell them what to do…hopefully they’re happy with a manager who tells the truth.
Jol also paid tribute to the durability of his squad, who have been involved in competitive action since June after Fulham were obliged to enter the Europa League at the first qualifying round stage having won their place in Europe via the fair play league.
The first couple of months for the Europa League, Clint Dempsey wasn’t there and Moussa Dembele wasn’t there so we used to play with Andy Johnson and Bobby Zamora all the time. s soon as the Premier League started, Bobby had to drop out with injuries and Andy had the same problem two or three times so it was not possible to play them together.
Don’t forget Moussa Dembele can play up front as well so we’ve got various options and today I wanted to keep the momentum going with Andy Johnson which is normal after the game against Odense, and that proved to be a good decision. There’s a lot of positives. We played well, but you have to put the ball into the net for confidence and you need a player like Andy as well, but hopefully one time it will be Andy who scores a hat-trick, the next time it will be Bobby who gets a hat-trick.
