Graeme Jones revealed that all his preparations to face Bristol City were undone when the Hatters conceded in the fourth minute to a Marley Watkins header having warned his men about the Robins’ crossing ability.
It was an area that Fulham exploited on Boxing Day and at Ashton Gate today it was effectively a sucker punch that Town could not recover from as they went on to lose 3-0.
They fell further behind on the stroke of half time to a Famara Diedhiou penalty, after Kazenga LuaLua tripped Jack Hunt, and the points were confirmed in the 66th minute through an improvised Andreas Weimann back heel finish.
But it was the early goal that was something Jones had warned about and he said: “Since Fulham, all we have talked about is their crossing ability, stopping the cross. Defending with an extra number in the box and you need to show resilience and resistance to see out those moments, to stay in the game and to have a chance and we had a mountain to climb from minute one.
“I could see early on we weren’t going to cope – I had plan B and plan C in my head, like I have all season, but ultimately you need to show resilience and resistance. With the greatest respect to Luke (Bolton) and James (Bree), they’re two young men and that was disappointing and we got off to a really difficult start.”
Jones switched to a back three after the opening goal after Luke Bolton – who was substituted at half time – got exposed on a number of occasions by Eliasson, and while it helped stem the tide, the damage was done.
“You have to feel like you’ll win a game of football and I think the senior boys, the men, with the greatest respect, to the ones who are more mature, we all looked fatigued,” said Jones.
“I got the physical stats from Fulham, they were through the roof and we didn’t recover. I think the senior boys dig in and manage to give you a level, competitiveness.
“I am not saying we had the spark in the final third because we didn’t. but getting off to that sort of start, not making it difficult for the opposition, that was an area where we went wrong today.”
