Fulham Head Coach Scott Parker shrugged off claims that confidence is proving an issue in his players following Saturday’s slender defeat to Crystal Palace.
“I don’t think confidence is proving an issue”, he started. “The dynamics of this division and what this division brings show we need to learn, and we need to pick up goals.
You never want to concede goals. Today for the first 15 minutes we showed pure domination. We lacked a real threat, but we had a control, the first time they go forward, they score.
It was the same in the second half, we came out of the blocks well and then it’s 2-0."
The Head Coach acknowledged the fact that his side needed more threat in the final third but praised the control he saw from his team.
“We were playing against a team who are happy without the ball at times.
It became very difficult for us.
We need to learn from how this game panned out.
We had a dominance but at times in the final third we lacked shots and a dynamic.
We hit the post twice but that’s how I saw today.”
Parker was quizzed on whether the next game against West Brom gains greater significance following the defeat to Palace - which the boss remained level about.
“It’s going to be a massive game for us but today was a massive game too”, he continued. “We need to learn from today and learn from the mistakes, but we need to do that every game.
The next game is huge for us but it’s only as big as what the other ones have been.
It’s a young team that’s still trying to gel, there were some big positives today, but we don’t have any points.
We now have to dust ourselves down and we need to face up, keep working hard and hopefully we’ll come out of the other side and I’m sure we will.”
A resilient Scott channelled the same attitude that reflected his playing career: hard work will show results. A philosophy he sticks by when the going gets tough.
“I can’t control how long I have. What I can do is what I’ve normally done throughout my career.
During these hard times, you need to front it up and work as hard as I possibly can to get the rewards. It’s out of my hands.”