Fulham boss Scott Parker couldn’t hide his pride after Fulham put in a wonderful display at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Wednesday night.
Playing just two days after learning of the fixture, the Whites took the game to a Spurs side who would have gone third with a win, and ended up with a richly deserved 1-1 draw.
“I thought we were immense tonight,” Parker beamed. “To a man we were superb under what we faced, with a lot of speculation, a lot of talk from everyone outside.
“No-one really understood and no-one really knows the full extent of what we’ve been through.
“We had players out there tonight who’ve had one day’s training after coming back from illness, players in the squad who’ve had two, three, four days of training.
“Overall I’m very, very proud because of what we faced, but I don’t want to lose sight of our bravery, commitment, desire. It was all there, but there was also a real quality.
“I thought we were immense tonight, with the ball, our gameplan, the way we went about it. We caused Spurs a lot of problems.
“Of course you come to this place and you’re going to need your ‘keeper to pull off a couple of saves, which he did, but for large parts I thought we controlled the game really well and showed some real quality about us.”
It was put to the Fulham Head Coach that his players demonstrated a tremendous spirit in the face of adversity.
“We definitely needed that tonight because it’s been a tough couple of weeks for us, with 10, 11 positive tests,” Parker replied. “It was 14 days ago this game was [originally] scheduled, so we had players who have been in isolation and indoors now for 10 days.
“A game then gets put in our laps on Monday morning at 9.30 so players had to come in and play the game.
“We used that, of course we did, because we felt it was unfair, we didn’t think it was right what happened tonight in that sense.
“So certainly yes that helped, but I’m more pleased with the way we played. I thought we played ever so well.”
It’s five matches unbeaten in the Premier League now for the Whites – a run bettered only by the two Manchester clubs – so is confidence of avoiding relegation growing?
“I think we can [stay up],” Parker said. “I see a team growing, from the start of the season to now, a team that are relentless in their work. Every day we come in, work tirelessly on the training pitch.
“These are players who are engaged, players who want to learn, players who want to be successful. With that, and with that spirit and that hunger to learn and get better, you always have a chance.
“We’re going to need that desire, but you also have to show your quality, and I thought we had a real identity about us tonight.”