Scott Parker was disappointed by what he felt was a poor performance at both ends of the pitch at Preston North End.
After starting the game in a positive fashion his side was pegged back by Sean Maguire early in the first half before a Denis Odoi red card changed the outlook of proceedings.
With the hosts also seeing red, the remainder of the game was played with both teams one man short.
Despite the lifeline Parker was left ruining the inability of his side not to work their way back into the game.
“It’s a disappointing performance from us,” Parker reflected. “Both ends of the pitch we just simply weren’t good enough tonight.
“Defensively we gave away sloppy, cheap goals and in the top end of the pitch we lacked a real cutting edge.
“We got to the edge of the box pretty well and got into final third but we lacked quality when it came to crossing opportunities on goal.
“We lacked movement in and around the penalty area as well.
“You can’t give away goals like we did in any division. At this present moment in time we need to score two or three goals to win a football match and that leaves us with uphill battles.
“In the end we huffed and puffed and we obviously had some good opportunities but on another day you might be walking out of here with a draw.
“We just have to dust ourselves off and go again.”
Preston, who had been in poor form and lost four straight before the match vs Fulham this evening grew in confidence throughout the encounter and Parker was frustrated by how easily his side conceded against a side low on confidence.
“I thought they did really well,” Parker stated. “They had been on a bit of a bad run when we arrived here today.
“It had been four defeats in a row but today they really didn’t have to work too hard for their two goals.
“After their first goal and before the sending off I felt like we were working our way back into the game.
“After the sending off we had to work around that a little bit and make changes.
“When it went to ten v ten we conceded a poor second goal and it took the breath out of us.
“We finished the game strong but it just wasn’t our day.
“We tried to get more attackers on the pitch near the end and that was a risk worth taking.”
Following a controversial end to the last match vs Bristol City the match at Deepdale was packed full of incident.
An early Denis Odoi red card was almost levelled off by a two-footed Ben Pearson challenge before Jospeh Rafferty was sent packing for a rash tackle on Joe Bryan.
Despite some decisions not going our way in recent weeks the Head Coach was quick to point out his side need to move forward and focus on the next task at hand.
“I have not been able to take a look at the incident yet,” he said. “At the time it looked like a bit of a headrush moment so from what I am hearing it seems like it was a sending off.
“The two footed tackle looked bad from where I was standing at real time, it looked like a red card.
“It was a two footed challenge and that is dangerous play.
“We’ve been on the receiving end of a couple of bad decisions. It’s one of those things in football. We go home empty handed tonight.
“All we can do is analyse, see what went wrong, work on things and try to improve.
“Decisions and what happened tonight is long gone. We have to look forward.”
