Lambert: Villa deserved a point

Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert insists his side deserved something from their clash with Fulham after losing to a late goal on Saturday.

Lambert’s men defended resolutely for much of the match at Craven Cottage and fought hard in midfield especially before Chris Baird’s late goal denied the visitors a point.

The former Norwich City manager felt his team were good value for at least a point in the English Premier League clash.

“I thought we did (deserve to get something out of the game),” Lambert said after the game.

“Some of the football we played was great and coming to a hard place where their home record is very good, I thought we gave as good as we got.”

Baird’s late goal from John Arne Riise’s corner extended Villa’s winless run in the league to four matches and Lambert was hugely frustrated to lose a point in such a manner.

“(It’s) very disappointing to lose a goal from a set-piece when we coped so well all game,” Lambert said.

“You can’t concede (like that). I won’t have a blame culture, but as a team we never dealt with it, but some of the football we played was very good and there were a lot of positives to take out of it.”

Fulham manager Martin Jol was delighted for Baird to have grabbed the late goal, but described the corner that led to it as the worst he had ever seen.

“(Baird is) very good in attacking the near post, but it’s always close and he hasn’t scored as long as I’ve known him,” Jol told reporters after the match.

“It was probably the worst corner kick ever. Somebody said it was a good delivery, but I don’t think it was.

“It was because he attacked the ball that he could score. So it’s not always about the delivery, it’s about players being on the end of it and it was nice to see Chris do that.”

Jol fielded an experimental and very attacking side, with signings Dimitar Berbatov, Mladen Petric and Hugo Rodallega all on the pitch, and was pleased with the results.

“It’s always difficult to play a team like (Villa). They play with four midfield players, no flank players, and as you know I wanted to play with my best forward players.

“(Damien) Duff was ill so I had to change the forward line and they’d never played together before, not even in training, so to have a result like this is special for us.”