Boss Steve Cooper was once again left to rue a “self-inflicted” wound as Nottingham Forest suffered a fourth-straight defeat, falling 3-2 at home to Fulham.
The Reds head coach admitted a lack of game management after conceding is proving costly for his team, as, for the second match in a row, they were guilty of a second half collapse. Three goals in the space of six minutes turned the game on its head at the City Ground.
Taiwo Awoniyi had given the hosts the lead at the break. But, just as they had done against Bournemouth previously, Forest then fell apart. Tosin Adarabioyo, Joao Palhinha and Harrison Reed found the net in quick succession, and although substitute Lewis O’Brien pulled one back with 13 minutes to go, it was too little, too late.
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Cooper had acknowledged in the build-up that integrating 22 new signings is proving a challenge. And he reiterated again that it is taking time for players to gel.
“It was self-inflicted again. We should look no further than at ourselves, because what we’re not doing at the moment is, when we concede a goal - obviously you don’t want to concede any, but when we do - we’re not managing the moments after it well enough,” said Cooper.
“A couple of times now, we’ve been punished for not managing that well. Whether it’s concentration, a bit of anxiety, whether it’s trying to get back into the game too quick, I don’t know.
“But what we’re not doing is managing those moments straight after conceding a goal very well. If you do that at any level you can be punished, but particularly at this one.
“I thought we were okay in the first half. They had more of the ball than I would have liked, but I didn’t think they were too threatening on our goal. I thought we were managing the game pretty well without the ball.
“But we did say to the guys, ‘listen, we need the ball a bit more and we need to play in their half more than we did in the first half’. I actually thought we started the second half much better; we were stepping up and trying to get a second goal.
“We’ve turned the ball over high up into their half, and we’ve just been too open in terms of allowing them towards our goal. That’s a few times we’ve done that in games now. If you give players at this level the time and space we’ve afforded them, then you will get punished. That’s what’s happened.
“We kept going. The fans kept going - I appreciate that. We got ourselves back into the game with Lewis’ goal and tried to get the third. But unfortunately, that mindset around those five minutes has cost us the game.
“I think we were playing well when they got their first goal - probably our best moment, in terms of general play in the game.
“Maybe it was a body blow. We’re just not handling conceding the first goal well enough.
“Some of our game is positive and looks like we’re progressing. But there’s other parts of our game where we do look like a new team, there’s no doubt about that. That moment of conceding goals is.
“When you need to regroup and stay together, that comes with an experienced team of being together, with connections on the pitch. That’s something we don’t have, for the nature of how the squad’s been put together and the timing of it. We don’t have that.”
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