Marco Silva bemoaned Fulham’s poor finishing after his side slipped to a surprise defeat against Reading at Craven Cottage this afternoon.
The hosts dominated the contest but fell behind to a brilliantly taken double from Ovie Ejaria. Rodrigo Muniz’s first Fulham goal set up a grandstand finish but Fulham could force an equaliser in stoppage time. Silva told his post-match press conference that he was disappointed with his team’s lack of ruthlessness in the final third.
“The stats are there, it’s clear for everyone who saw the game. But the result is there as well. In football you can have a lot of possession, you can create so many chances if you’re not clinical enough, it can happen. We scored once, but we conceded two goals. The first was a counterattack, but we can’t concede the second in that way.
“The commitment, the desire, the attitude to chance the things were there. The basics we cannot negotiate was there on the pitch. The way we started the game, the way we started creating chances with being more clinical with the last decision, with a little more quality, this is a game we could’ve decided in the first 15 minutes. The chances we have with Bobby and more chances we created before they scored, we can be ahead in the score and everything will be different, that is football we were not clinical enough. A great afternoon for their goalkeeper as well.
“I said at half time, I told our players we would change the score if we don’t give them a chance to score more goals because I knew that will happen, it is important that we don’t lose the balance, the focus, don’t make mistakes. If we score, the game can change straight away for us, but unfortunately, we conceded another goal.”
The one bright spot was Muniz opening his account for the club. The Brazilian forward looked bright on his Craven Cottage debut and Silva feels this will be just be the start for the 20 year-old.
“It’s important for him, he has the capacity to score, I don’t have any doubts about it. He needs more time. I didn’t make a change at half-time because I expected a strong reaction after the way we finished the first half. We prepared a situation with Rodrigo playing with two strikers up front.
“He did what he normally does. We need the team to create a little more out wide for him because he’s really strong there. He had a strong knock in the last 10 minutes, he couldn’t run, but we had to keep him on the pitch because we didn’t have any more changes. He’s in pain now, but we have to wait and check.”
So, so frustrating!
Two successive Saturday defeats clearly show that we can’t take anything for granted.
If we had taken our early chances -different story. But we didn’t and we need to learn how to deal with things when chances don’t go our way.
I am going to stay positive and focus on the pros such as the fact that we have Carvalho and Harrison Reed to return, Chalobah will improve as his fitness progresses, Harry Wilson will rarely have such a horrid afternoon again, Muniz is off the mark etc. Ultimately, our defeat was certainly not down to a lack of effort-more a lack of killer instinct.
BUT, and we can’t ignore the buts, how does Cavaleiro continue to be such a thorn in our side? As per usual when he starts we are akin to being a man down straight from kickoff.
He had a brief 10 minute spell, second half, when he finally seemed to come to life but, other than that, his crosses and final touch were so poor. I fear that the combined efforts of Silva and Boa Morte will never be able to turn this sow’s ear into a silk purse even though they can actually cajole him in the same lingo.
Ultimately, I guess we just need to stop getting carried away when we beat teams like Birmingham (who really aren’t as good as we made out-witness their result against Peterborough).
Our defeat was made more galling by Bournemouth’s victory at Cardiff which saw them leapfrog to the top of the table.
But it’s early days and we need to move on, regroup, get some of our injured players back, trust in Marco and all will be well.
I was really looking forward to this match and to say I was disappointed is an understatement. Once again when we went behind we looked very average not knowing what to do. At time it was like watching Parkerball again. Everything seemed to go back to Tim Ream. Wilson was anonymous and only started to come to life when Kebano came on which meant he moved move inside. I do not understand why we start with Cavaleiro . We looked completely disjointed and our midfield did not gel. Decova- Reed missed a sitter and really never featured. Our crossing was abysmal . All round a poor day at the office What happened to Joe Bryan he was not even on the bench. we can’t afford many more performances like this. Sorry to sound pessimistic, but I had such high hopes. At least we saw Muniz and he scored and maybe he could form a joint spearhead with Mitro who worked his socks off but fed off scraps.
Once we went behind through poor defending we had no idea how to unlock Readings packed defence. We constantly went down the wings but our crossing was terrible. How Cavaleiro can be preferred to Kebano is beyond comprehension.There was no plan B. I agree our midfield did not gel . Odoi was left exposed too often. We constantly looked vulnerable when they broke wide. It will interesting hopefully to see some of the fringe players against Leeds, I certainly would want Stansfield start and possibly Stephen Sess feature. Certainly a poor day at the office today, which we cannot afford to repeat too often.
One key problem is We are too over – confident and maybe too overrated . … . We are totally underestimating the opposition . Other teams fight like crazy and if they don’t have the skills they use their superior physical strength and counter- attacking football . Its not just our line up its what the opposition are doing to out-smart Fulham . Having said that like everyone I do not understand why we start with Cavaleiro and not Kebano , this lad ups our game every time he plays . Despite a good showing at Birmingham still not sure on Gazza.
A very poor performance reminding me of Parker ball again we have to stop all this passing the ball backwards and move the ball forward much faster like we were doing earlier this season, i agree Caveleiro should not be a starter and the sooner we get Carvaloh and Harrison back the better,Muniz has to start instead of Decordova Reid and i think Joe Bryan should play instead of Robinson we had so many chances to score but we are so wasteful we have to improve our finishing if we are going to get promotion.
Agree with Silva about the finishing. BDR through 1 on 1 and a free header headed straight at the keeper. 2 very poor efforts. You can see if we don’t score first and teams somehow get in front they’re going to hang on and time waste. Just not our day. Carvalho and Reed to come back we will be fine. Key stat from yesterday….we had 17 more shots than Reading but only 1 more shot on target.
Clearly Cavaleiro has to sit out. I’m sure he will when everyone is fit. It was strange watching us play with 2 strikers at the end…can’t remember the last time we set up like that. We looked ok. Muniz is going to be an option for sure.
It’s going to be a long season. I absolutely agree with the statement about attitude. We looked a little slow and sloppy at the start. Reaction needed