Scott Parker felt disappointed by Fulham’s display for the first time this season after the Whites were humbled by Hull City at Craven Cottage.
Parker was hoping to build on a hard-fought point at Middlesbrough last week and close in on the play-off places against the Tigers, but Fulham were humiliated instead. The head coach told his post-match press conference:
“This is the first time this season where I sit here disappointed. Obviously with the way the game went and the way things panned out there is not much I can say.
“We were not where we needed to be today. We have had defeats at home this year but today I felt we were flat. We were playing against arguably the best counter-attacking team in the division and the players up front for them exploited that, certainly for their first goal.
“You go down a goal down in this division it proves difficult and today that’s what happened. We have come off a positive result at Middlesbrough, albeit a draw where I was really pleased with the team’s desire and attitude.
“A game of football is always difficult when you go a goal down early on. We are disappointed with the way the goal went in. They exploited how flat we were and ultimately, what will determine how successful I am personally and how successful this team is, will be moments like this. A cliché as it is, we have to bounce back and go again next week.”
Parker felt Hull’s second goal after his side had made a bright start to the second half was a real sucker punch.
“I felt like when they scored their second goal, we were in the ascendancy. Mitro has a good chance on the stroke of half-time, which didn’t fall for us. At the time, I felt if we can stick with the way we wanted to play and get in the right areas, we will break this team down, but it wasn’t the case and they went and scored a second.
“We tried to mix up the game and put it in wide areas and then went a little bit more direct later on in the game. They dealt with it well. Teams come here and we are a big scalp for them and we need to be ready for a battle each week.”
Parker was quick to defend his approach against questions from journalists afterwards.
“I hear a lot that this team is a possession based team. That we lack an impetuous. We are top in this division in shots on goal, shots on target. We are obviously doing something right. We are getting the ball into the right areas. No other team in this league is hitting the target more than us.
“I hear people saying our possession game is slow. I would understand peoples opinion regarding how I want to play and also the identity of how this team wants to play if we weren’t creating chances and hitting the target. From the first week people have been pointing fingers regarding this element of our game.
“Yes we have a lot of possession and if I feel like we carry on like that things will turn for us. That is the team I want us to be. We lost the game fair and square. We weren’t anywhere near the level we needed to be and that’s it.”
