Parker remains defiant despite Leicester defeat

Frustrated Scott Parker lamented Fulham’s shortcomings as he watched his side slump to a 2-0 defeat to Leicester City at Craven Cottage.

The west Londoners are now 11 games without a win and they were exposed with two well-taken, first half goals by Kelechi Iheanacho and James Justin.

Brendan Rodgers’ men exacted revenge for defeat to Fulham in last November’s corresponding fixture, as the vibrant Foxes moved into third place in the Premier League.

Fulham, on the other hand, remain in the bottom three, eight points adrift from safety. And they face West Ham, another in-form outfit, in what is likely to be a difficult London derby on Saturday. Plenty of questions, therefore, that Parker must quickly address.

“We fell a little bit short. We understand we need to start winning football matches - we’re at a stage where there is a clear focus. We move onto Saturday,” said Cottagers’ chief Parker.

“Their quality in the attacking third for their goals was evident. The detail in their counter attack with the decisions they made was excellent. We weren’t able to take our moments, not necessarily with shots, but little overloads.”

For all their efforts, Fulham struggled to make chances all evening, a matter of ongoing concern. Parker, though, remains optimistic that his side can translate work-rate into victories across the second half of the season to avoid going straight back down to the Championship.

He added: “We need to win games now. We want to give ourselves a fighting chance to stay in this division. This team have progressed extremely well. We’ve gone from a team that was written off to a team that has worked on certain problems.

“Am I looking at a team that’s wilting to a slow death? Not at all. My team is fully committed to the job in hand. People may say I’m mad, but I see a team that can win football matches. There are 17 games left this season, we’ve seen what a couple of results in a short space of time can do.

“When you’re newly-promoted, progression is what you need to work on. This is a great group of lads that are working their hardest. The way we win games is by putting in strong, confident performances. We can’t let defeats derail us.”

Rodgers, meanwhile, was understandably happy to leave the capital with all three points after a very satisfying night for the Foxes.

“I thought it was an excellent win,” said the Leicester boss. “You only need to look at Fulham’s record, how hard they have been to beat, especially against big teams. We scored two goals of great quality.”