Head coach Steve Cooper was left to rue Nottingham Forest not making a positive second half count as their unbeaten Premier League run came to an end.
The Reds boss refused to use losing centre-back duo Scott McKenna and Willy Boly after seven minutes as an excuse for a poor first half against Fulham. And he felt his side should have secured an equaliser when they improved after the break.
Willian had put the hosts in front with 17 minutes gone at Craven Cottage. Substitutions made a difference for Forest as they tried to get back in the game, but they failed to take advantage of putting their opponents under pressure, with a Manor Solomon goal making sure of the points for the hosts late on.
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"The message I said to the lads after the game was about the difference between the approach in the second half and the first half,” Cooper said. “I was expecting us to equalise with the way the game was going. I was getting slightly frustrated that we weren't testing the goalkeeper as we should, with the good positions we were in. But I felt it would come.
"You could see the home crowd were getting frustrated. I just felt, capture the moment and try to get an equaliser. Unfortunately, we've got done against the run of play, which can happen. But we will only look at ourselves and what we should do better.
"We won't use (the injuries) as an excuse because I don't think that would be right. On that incident, it was unfortunate.
"I've never seen it before - same position, same action, same injury. And I hope it never happens again.
"How did it affect the game? There was a little bit of sorting out, in terms of changing two centre-backs. You only really change centre-backs because of injury, so to do two at once so early on was strange.
"It maybe took a little bit of getting used to in the game. And the other thing was it meant two less attacking changes we could make in the second half to make us more of a threat.
"But we won't hide behind that as a reason for the result. I felt that in the first half we didn't quite take the game to Fulham as we should. There was an opportunity to do that, and I just felt we didn't play it forward quick enough and didn't play with enough belief.
"Second half, we did. I thought we were by far the best team.
“We should have played in the first half like we did in the second half. And when you play like we did in the second half, you have to make the most of your opportunities - and we didn't. We have to accept the result for what it was.”
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