“Last year we had four wins and five draws away from home. That is not bad but certainly not good,” Jol said. “Five midfielders left the club – a couple of them I wanted to keep. I was so satisfied for Sidwell and [Chris] Baird. They didn’t play over the last couple of months because we had a different midfield with [Mahamadou] Diarra and Moussa Dembele.”
It still has been a reasonably good start to the season for Martinez, but the absence of Franco Di Santo from the squad shone a light on the threadbare squad in an attacking sense. Mauro Boselli was the only striking option, thrown on with half an hour to play. The Argentine’s glaring miss from six yards moments after being introduced summed up their problems when the top scorer is absent.
“Overall, we didn’t deserve to lose,” Martinez said. “We had the better chances, but you need to score goals. Our performances need to be more solid. Since the international break we have lost a bit of focus.”
Martinez is already looking for attacking options to target in January, but his public admiration of Crystal Palace forward Wilfried Zaha has angered the Eagles’ chairman Steve Parish, who took to Twitter to lambast the Wigan boss. They continue to monitor the player, and lacked his sort of pace in behind against a stubborn Fulham back four. “Having nicked Victor [Moses] due to administration, then selling for £9 million Roberto would like it ever so much if we would roll over,” Parish said. “I guess he’ll just try to unsettle our player using the papers.”
Damien Duff showed Boselli how it was done, converting Bryan Ruiz’s assist on the counter. Kone’s turn and spin in the dying minutes almost summoned a late comeback but it could not spoil Fulham’s best start to a campaign since 2002.
