Scott Parker has urged his Fulham side to maintain the momentum provided by yesterday afternoon’s superb win at Liverpool as their bid for survival reaches the season’s final ten games.
The Londoners recorded only their second-ever success at Anfield thanks to a fine strike on the stroke of half-time from Mario Lemina. The narrow win extended Fulham’s unbeaten away run to eight Premier League matches and the Whites now only remain in the bottom three on goal difference.
Parker has been insistent for some time that his side, who looked marooned in the drop zone at one stage of the season, had the quality to avoid relegation and Fulham’s fine performances in February began to narrow the gap between themselves and safety. The Fulham boss is firmly focused on what is ahead of his side – telling the written press after a second win on Merseyside in a matter of weeks that he pays little attention to the results of relegation rivals.
“A win like this galvanises, not that we needed it, or a result, to give us belief or an understanding of what we can do as it’s constantly been there. What is happening around us, who we are dragging in, is irrelevant and remains to be the case. If we had taken any focus off us from the start of the season we wouldn’t be in this position.It is about us wanting to get better and keep moving in the right direction and that will not change.
“The focus was to come here and get a result and cause Liverpool problems. I thought we did that, certainly in the first half. While results can give you that extra bit of belief this is a team which has real belief. We will carry on for the remainder of the season in the same vein.”
Fulham face league leaders Manchester City, whose run of 21 straight victories came to an end in their derby defeat by local rivals Manchester United yesterday, at Craven Cottage next Saturday night.
