Martin Jol says he would take strong action against any Fulham player who was caught diving.
The Fulham manager was responding to questions in his pre-match conference about Wisla Krakow’s Gervasio Nunez, whose cynical reaction to an innocuous push from Moussa Dembele earned the Belgian a red card in the away fixture. The Argentine is certain to face a hot reception from the home crowd when the two sides meet again at Craven Cottage.
Jol also distanced himself from quotes attributed to his centre forward Andy Johnson, who hinted that Fulham’s players might need to be cuter in European football ‘to even things up’, in the build-up to the game.
I would have a word with my player if they did what Nunez did because it is not our style. You won’t see that in our team.
I felt the referee was quite experienced so it is about momentum. He has to make these decisions and probably in hindsight he would have seen it was a mistake because it was the fourth official that probably called it.
It is a bit of teamwork so I don’t want to blame him but it was certainly an awful match. If we had got a result, we would be fine. But we got reduced to 10 men and lost so it was almost like everything was for nothing and that was awful.
Jol also said that he’ll play a strong side as Fulham hope to atone for their defeat in Poland and increase their chances of qualifying from Group K.
It is important for most of the teams to quality, although English teams will say it is not the biggest thing in the world. I think Fulham raised their profile in Europe a couple of years ago when they reached the final so there is a culture in this squad that they want to do well and I agree with that.
Twente play a weaker team in Odense so we have to take things in our hands. If we get a good result, we are halfway there.
