Marco Silva was furious after Fulham were denied three points at Preston North End by Ched Evans’ equaliser this afternoon.
The Fulham head coach told Sky Sports that the home side’s leveller should have been disallowed – not just for handballs by Evans and Emil Riis but for a foul on the Fulham goalkeeper Marek Rodak.
“It’s a mistake – it is not controversial. It is a clear mistake from the referee. The goal came from a clear, clear mistake. It was bad performances from ourselves and a bad performance from the referee. It is not just one foul, it is two fouls. It is an elbow in his face maybe and after the elbow as well I think it is two handballs. It is difficult for the fourth official, the linesman and the referee. You have to protect the goalkeepers in this competition – because so many fouls on them, because in one moment you push them inside the goal and it is an easy goal.
“It is not an excuse because I explained that our second half was not good enough. We must do different in the second half. The last game we lost was more or less the same thing. The game was balanced, tough game to play and there was a dive in our box. This afternoon unfortunately for us was the same. We have to look at what we can control and what can control is not do in the second half what we did.”
Silva saved some opprobrium for his own side, who surrendered the lead given to them by Tim Ream’s opener with a whimper in a second half where they were outfought.
“I would prefer to start in a different way because it is not just the decision – but in terms of performance, first half we played in the way we wanted to play. We knew that they will be five at the back, we started to control the ball and we move the ball from side to side. We created some moments, we scored and we were clearly the best team on the pitch in the first half, even if they had some counter attacks.
Second half – the reality is we didn’t play. We didn’t perform in the way we should do, the way we prepared and the way we expected after our speech at half time. It was a bad, bad second half from us.”
Awful decision but overall fair result … but seems to me the lads are still struggling with fitness after that bug..very sluggish in second half … others results went our way so all things remain the same … lets hope all fit for next Friday night . COYW !
Silva is right-the officials got key decisions wrong today. Their goal was farcical; so many fouls and handballs and they couldn’t spot at least one???
Silva is also right to criticise our performance-which was dire.
I think he is wrong, however, on two counts: he says our first half performance was “the way we wanted to play” and “we created more moments”.
That clearly was not the case because, apart from the goal and 70% possession in the first 30 minutes, we created nothing and, from the half hour mark, the game swung perceptibly in Preston’s favour.
Why?
Firstly, I get that 3 games in a week is too much. I fully understand that there was some kind of illness running through the squad. I also note the weather conditions, the early kickoff etc etc etc
BUT, this was not a one off. Too many away performances this season have been sub-par.
For some reason, away from home, we are content to start off playing a slow possession based game with zero attacking intent (shades of Parkerball) and, even if we grab a goal, we just know that our dominance will not last as the home team gets to grips and starts to press, growing in confidence as they do so.
We got away with it at Peterborough. We didn’t at Bristol City. Let’s not talk about Coventry and Blackpool. Yesterday was another one of these awful away games where too many players just don’t turn up and, despite early possession dominance, we slowly start to surrender the midfield, balls to our front players don’t stick and, together with pathetically inaccurate passing from all and sundry, the pressure starts to build .
Why this happens I just don’t know but it does and it’s no good making excuses. It needs to be analysed and corrected.
Which leads me to Silva’s second mistake IMO: For some reason, he rarely likes to make changes before the hour mark. I know there have been one or two notable exceptions but, in general, that seems to be his preferred way of doing things. Yet, yesterday, from the 30th minute, our midfield was starting to be outplayed and, second half, it was totally dominated by Preston. Rather than continue with, on the day, ineffectual players such as Wilson and Carvalho, Silva should have done something to quell Preston’s advantage. The longer he left it, the greater their confidence grew.
When he did make a change-instead of supplementing the midfield- he basically swapped like for like and it had no impact on their momentum.
I’m not criticising our head coach -because I think he’s the best thing to happen to our club in a long time -but I do think he retains his attacking “stars” for as long as he can-in the hope/belief that they will grab another goal. And that’s one of the reasons I like him so much. But, sometimes, he needs to recognise that, horror of horrors, today is going to be one of those cruddy days when nobody brings their A game and we are in for a frustrating nightmare afternoon and we need to ensure that, whatever else happens, we retain dominance and don’t concede.
That said, after two poor performances, our unbeaten run continues, other results have gone our way and we go into Friday’s much anticipated clash still topping the league. All of the last 180 minutes will be forgotten if we turn up and put Bournemouth to the sword-which I am sure we will.