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West Ham 3-0 Fulham Prem 13 1314 Daily Star

last updated Monday 02nd December 2013, 9:40 PM
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Paul Brown at Daily Star


West Ham (0) 3 Fulham (0) 0


Goals from Mo Diame and the two Coles - Carlton and Joe - sent the Cottagers spinning to a fifth league defeat on the bounce.

It was a run that earned Jol the sack yesterday in one of the least surprising managerial decisions of the season.

But Taarabt reckons the players need to look closer to home to find the real culprits ahead of Wednesday's visit of Tottenham.

The on-loan Moroccan went through all this last season with QPR, who failed to win in their first 16 games at the start of the campaign and ended up being relegated.

He is desperate to avoid an action replay with Fulham but admits life only gets harder the longer you are stuck in the bottom three.

Taarabt said: "We are to blame. Martin Jol is a good manager. At the moment it is not working.

"But we need to stay positive. I want to stay in the Premier League. I don't want to see us go down.

"I had this situation with QPR last year and every game you don't win adds to the pressure. It's hard. When you are at the bottom, the situation puts us under pressure.

"We started well, and had we scored it could have been a different game. But after we conceded we were not as well organised and at the end we lacked fight."

Fulham certainly collapsed after Diame's deflected opener in the 47th minute broke the deadlock.

Although they didn't concede again until the last 10 minutes, they already looked a beaten side.

Jol looked for all the world like a man who had run out of ideas on Saturday night.

He has not had much money to spend and some of his players are letting him down.

But Jol has also been his own worst enemy. Before this game Sam Allardyce was under huge pressure at West Ham but he found a way to win for the first time in six matches.

And while Jol refused to compromise on his principles, Allardyce emerged victorious after telling his players to get their hands dirty and win at all costs.

The West Ham boss said: "The pressure's massive. But the only way to get out of it is not to talk about how good a football we're playing and how we should have done this and should have done that, it's about winning matches first."

By contrast, Jol said: "I heard the stories that they would change their style and they did. But we coped with that. There was no big issue, no big problem.

"They are a bit more physical team than us anyway. We are a footballing team.

"We haven't got these strong, physical guys. We have to keep it on the deck."

Maybe. Maybe not. Most Fulham fans would probably sacrifice the pretty football for an ugly win or two right now.

For all West Ham's dominance, this game wasn't over until forgotten man Carlton Cole stepped off the bench to score his first goal in almost a year.

Released last summer, he has now made five appearances since the club took him back, and hopes to stick around for longer than his initial three-month contract.

Jol actually once tried to sign Cole - and the Hammers striker admitted he has felt sympathy for the Fulham boss.

Cole said: "It's an unfortunate position to be in. I know how hard it is with the pressure."

Ironically Jol's last press conference, less than 24 hours before he was sacked, centred around the lack of contact from owner Shahid Khan.

The Dutchman said: "Would I prefer more contact with him? No. I speak to my guys at Fulham every day because we work together.

"I'm in the office and we've got our daily meetings and they speak to the owner and they will transmit and tell me what they think and what they do.

"I've spoken to him, I think it was two months ago when he was in London. After that we haven't spoken.

"If you guys ask me how I feel, I say 'lonely' but that's not because of the people all around me.

"They support me but they are in the same boat. They can't sleep because of this situation."






















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