Jol furious with Rovers defeat, Kean calm in crisis

Fulham manager Martin Jol was frustrated after seeing his side lose 3-1 to a 10-man Blackburn outfit on Saturday.

Yakubu was sent off for what the Dutch coach believes was an ‘obvious’ red card after 23 minutes but Morten Gamst Pedersen and David Dunn struck to give the hosts a surprise half-time lead, with Damien Duff’s reply negated by a Mauro Formica effort in the second period.

A bemused Jol told the press after the match: “It looked like everything went for us but we conceded a goal from a free-kick just before half-time.”

“It’s not what you want but we came back and we tried to repair the damage and then they scored the second goal, so we couldn’t do anything about it.”

The ex-Spurs boss explained that he had looked to change the game from the bench but that the away side had not taken full advantage of their numerical superiority, allowing the determined Rovers to force a win.

“We scored with Damien Duff with all the offensive players on (the pitch),” he continued.

“You can’t make a negative or defensive substitution so we didn’t do that and we scored but then they scored the third and it was over.”

“Although everything went against them, all credit to them because they scored in the right moments, they tried to break us all the time and we couldn’t do anything about that, to close them down and keep them in their half.”

“If you don’t score the equaliser they’re always capable, with their pace, of scoring a third one.”

“It’s always about motivation and incentive and you knew that (the red card) could give them a new lease of life to let them control the game, but they didn’t, because everything went for us.”

“They scored from a free-kick (which was) disappointing but, on the other hand, we didn’t play in a very good tempo.”

“I don’t think that we played bad but we didn’t get the ball to hurt them.”

The match aside, rumours continue to circle Fulham striking duo Bobby Zamora and Andy Johnson, with the arrival of former manager Mark Hughes at QPR in particular prompting questions.

Jol insisted that there had been ‘no contact’ from QPR over Zamora, but confirmed that, with regards to Johnson and a possible move to Steve Kean’s side, said: “There is an interest but I would like to keep him.”

Belgian forward Moussa Dembele, one of Fulham’s standout performers this season, had been forced off the pitch through injury in the first half, with Jol revealing that the problem is a familiar one.

“He felt something in his hip, not the first time. I wanted him to play on but he couldn’t.”

Blackburn boss Steve Kean was relieved with the result that saw his side score all three goals minus the red-carded Yakubu.

Kean said he told his chargers to shut down dangerous midfielder Danny Murphy, and restrict Fulham’s wingers – a task the Rovers side took to with gumption.

“It was an early red card and it was quite daunting feeling to go into the rest of the game a man down against a very good Fulham side,” Kean said.

“But I think there were two ways we could have gone. We could have sat and been a little bit more defensive, but I wanted to try and keep Danny Murphy out of the game.”

“I feel Danny’s exceptional in the way he can bring people into the game, so we continued to have David Dunn just playing on Danny.”

“We just narrowed up the two wide lads, Junior Hoilett and Morten Gamst Pedersen. I thought they showed fantastic discipline to that shape, because that is not really natural to them and that was a big part of building the platform to go and get the goals.”