Alex Iwobi cut a disconsolate figure following Fulham’s self-inflicted defeat at West Ham United last night.
The Nigerian international scored a second half brace but Marco Silva’s side couldn’t find a late leveller to keep their nine-game unbeaten run going after defensive mistakes left the Whites with a mountain to climb at the London Stadium.
Iwobi told the club’s official website:
“We’re all disappointed, especially how we lost the game through [our own] mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, there’s a game around the corner [away at Leicester City on Saturday], we have to analyse it, dust ourselves off and go again. We’re disappointed. We created so many chances. We hit the woodwork twice, we felt like we could have got a few more goals. But if we don’t defend as a team, we don’t make these mistakes … of course, in the Premier League teams everyone punish us. We just have to work on that, cut out the mistakes and I’m sure we can beat teams like West Ham.”
Iwobi confirmed that he was trying to cross for Raul Jimenez and Harry Wilson for both of his goals in the second period.
“If my double is confirmed, then yeah! It doesn’t matter who scores, the main thing is that we get the three points – but I’ll take the two goals for now! I’m not going to say I took a shot, I was aiming for both of them [Raul Jimenez and Harry Wilson], that was the aim of the goals, I was aiming for my team-mates. Whether I’m scoring or creating, as long as anyone can get the goals, I’m easy.
We take pride in the London derbies. We hadn’t lost one since September 2023 or something. It was another game which we wanted to win, stamp our authority on London, but it wasn’t to be. We just go again. I’m sure Leicester are going to be looking at the game they played against us at home, they’ll probably want to have an impact against us and win at home. We’ll dust ourselves off, see where we went wrong, analyse Leicester and try and get the three points there.”
The players errors will never be eliminated, a tactical change when under pressure needs to be enforced by Silva. There is a time and a place for engaging row Z tactics. When I watch Leno playing about in his own 6 yard box scares the living daylights out of me and twice he managed to pressurise our own players when doing this. He cocked up big time with their third goal. He never plays the ball quickly and the giving the opposition time to pressurise our defenders and keeper.
As for the attacking side of the team, poor decision making and lack of composure when shooting have resulted in us not scoring, leaving us open for a sucker punch, which often happened on many occasions.
Will it change ?probably not.