A furious Kit Symons laid into his Fulham side as they slipped to 20th in the Championship.
The Whites boss and travelling fans had to witness a first-half surrender when what chances came their way were squandered and they conceded three at the other end – the last 10 seconds before the break.
The normally cheerful and measured manager barely kept his temper as he relived the nightmare of game gone wrong for a host of reasons.
“Frustrated is an understatement. I’m absolutely fuming, livid – call it what you want,” he said.
“The performance, both halves, was good. But if you defend and concede goals like that you’re asking for trouble and you don’t deserve anymore.”
“The way we played at 1-0 down, we had a couple of gilt-edged chances, Ross [McCormack] had a fantastic opportunity, we should have had an absolute stonewall penalty for handball at 1-0 – how the referee’s missed that goodness only knows.
“But we don’t take our chances and then concede two really sloppy goals in the last four or five minutes of the first half and suddenly 3-0 becomes a mountain to climb.”
“The players are well aware that some of the defending, and also not taking our chances, has got to be collectively better all round,” he said. “People are well aware of that – I made myself very clear with that.
“Obviously we had some strong words at half-time about our defending and certain aspects of our game. I said you’ve got to play for pride and second half they did that and worked hard.
“Again, we had some really good opportunities – I think we had a lot more crosses, a lot more shots, better possession, but I felt we probably could have played all night tonight and not scored.”
Fulham are at home to another team on Saturday who play in white – but there the comparison stops. Derby top the table, Fulham are two places outside the relegation places.
Symons is only too aware of the gathering storm clouds.
“There’s always a concern about what’s over your shoulder and we’re well aware of where we are,” he said. “We’ve got tough games coming up as well so we’re under absolutely no illusions whatsoever.
“But we’re saying the same things week in, week out; the performance is alright but we’re a bit unlucky here and there, things like that, and I’m getting fed up of it.”
