Birmingham City 1 – 2 Fulham
Fulham’s caretaker manager Kit Symons wants to see more consistency from his side after their first league win of the season at Birmingham City today.
Second half goals from Tim Hoogland and Hugo Rodallega salvaged Fulham their first three points after David Cotterill put Birmingham ahead in the first half.
Although he was delighted with his second win in three games in charge, Symons expressed the need for Fulham to play well over the full 90 minutes.
“In the three games since I’ve taken over, we seem to do either very well first half and drop off in the second half, or the other way,” he said.
“I don’t think we really showed the belief in the first half, but in the second half we showed it in abundance.”
Symons highlighted his players’ mistakes to them at half time and praised the improvements they made in response.
“Our defending was a little bit loose and our passing was absolutely awful. We were overplaying in the wrong areas and it was a poor first-half performance,” he said.
“But the players took on board what we told them at half-time, what we asked them to do differently, and they came out and did it fantastically well.”
Symons also plans to build on today’s win when his side meet Bolton on Wednesday.
He said: “Winning breeds confidence and gives you momentum. That’s what we’ve got now, two wins on the spin, and we need to build on it.”
Birmingham manager Lee Clark felt his players did not react in the right way after conceding.
“We became completely the opposite kind of team to what we had been previously in terms of on the ball and off the ball,” he said.
“That’s got to come from the players, they have got to be mentally stronger.”
