By Geoff Pruce

International hangover?

With Fulham claiming wins left, right and centre, it was a shame we had to wait so long for our next match, with Blackpool gratefully putting an end to our unbeaten beginning to the campaign. Five of our starting XI were off on their travels the past two weeks, but Marco Silva said afterwards that he would not for one second be using the international break as a reason for the performance. “We won’t make excuses, because if you want to have international players, you know the schedule,” he said. “I’m not thinking about the international break. We must do more during the game, and it’s not because of that [that we lost]. Some players arrived midway through the week, some a little bit later, but that’s part of the game. If I decided to play some of them it’s because I felt they were ready.”

Marco Silva at Blackpool

Debuts

Not an easy match to make your debut in, but Saturday saw us officially welcome Domingos Quina and Rodrigo Muniz into the family. With Fabio Carvalho injured, Quina slotted in at number 10, while Muniz came on for a last throw of the dice when he replaced right-back Denis Odoi. The Brazilian had a number of half chances after putting himself about well, but unfortunately nothing clean cut enough for him to take advantage of.

Paralympians in attendance

With the fixture computer giving us Blackpool away while the last days of summer (sort of) are still with us, there was always going to be a strong following to the seaside for this one. Around 1,500 of the Fulham faithful were in attendance at Bloomfield Road, two of whom were recently in Tokyo for the Paralympic Games. Chad Perris and Thomas Young – who won gold in the T38 100 metres – are huge Whites supporters and both made the trip to back Marco and the boys.

Fulham's Paralympians; Chad Perris and Thomas Young

Bump in the road

We came up against a very organised and hard working Blackpool side, and it won’t be the last time we find ourselves in that sort of situation this season. One defeat from six is a strong start to the campaign, and it’s important not to get carried away. “It’s fine, it’s a learning curve for us,” Bobby De Cordova-Reid said. “It’s just a bump, and we’ll be back from it. We’ve got to dust ourselves off and go again Wednesday.”

Bobby De Cordova-Reid in action against Blackpool

Making it count

The statistics emphasise how dominant Fulham were in the match, with 70 per cent possession, 17 efforts on goal to Blackpool’s eight, and four times as many shots on target. However, those numbers don’t tell the full story, as many of those attempts were half chances at best. The fact that our Expected Goals figure was our lowest all season (0.87) demonstrates how tricky we found it to carve out good openings.

It was a frustrating afternoon for Mitro and his teammates