Scott Parker insisted Fulham will need to learn the lessons of their see-saw victory over Huddersfield Town after his side almost let a three-goal lead slip at Craven Cottage this afternoon.

The Whites looked set for a comfortable victory after scoring three times in the first half an hour against the Terriers with a splendid goal from Bobby Decordova-Reid followed quickly by a fine strike by skipper Tom Cairney and Aleksandar Mitrovic’s first goal after returning from a serious ankle ligament injury. But Fulham then let their visitors back into the contest – conceding twice before half-time – and were fortunate to hold onto the three points with goalkeeper Marek Rodak making several fine stops as Huddersfield dominated the second half.

Parker was far from impressed with his side’s sloppiness, telling his post-match press conference that Fulham had ‘taken liberties’ after establishing a commanding lead.

First and foremost the result is key and I’m pleased with that. But take your foot off the pedal and take liberties, or go against what has got you 3-0 up, and in this division or in any football match it can come back to bite you. We dropped our intensity and it felt as if the game had become too easy for us.

At 3-0 they looked dejected and we should have put them to the sword by carrying on doing what has got us there, so I was disappointed in that. For 31 minutes I thought we were sensational. But the bits in between were poor and I didn’t like us one bit. If you see out the game there is some positive there, but we are a young team and we need to learn from today.

One positive was that we did hang on. Earlier in the season that might have ended in a draw. One thing that has been levelled against this team is that we are a bit soft and struggle to hold on to games. Today the keeper (Marek Rodak) had nothing to do in the first half but pick the ball out of the net twice but he showed composure and pulled out some good saves for us.