Liverpool manager Dalglish blasts Reds' attitude after historic 0-1 defeat to Fulham at home
Reds manager Kenny Dalglish insists Tuesday night’s poor 1-0 defeat to Fulham will have no bearing on Saturday’s FA Cup final against Chelsea.
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The Scot had hoped a number of fringe players would stake their claims to be involved at Wembley after making nine changes, leaving out the likes of Luis Suarez, Steven Gerrard and Craig Bellamy.
But Fulham, who had never won at Anfield in 30 previous attempts, took a fifth-minute lead through Martin Skrtel’s own goal and were barelyu00a0troubled after that.
“It will not affect Saturday but that doesn’t mean it (the performance) is right and it is not something you want to dismiss easily,” said Dalglish, who was critical of his players’ attitude. “It is not correct to go about your work in that way.
“But if we had come in and won 4-0 it wouldn’t have made any difference to Saturday.u00a0“There are one or two who did well but apart from that there wasn’t anything for us, myself included.
“A lot of people have to take responsibility for it.u00a0“There were some positives. It was nice to see the big lad (Carroll) back.u00a0“He had a niggle at the weekend but he is fit and back and played 90 minutes so that is good for us.”
Prior to the match Dalglish had challenged his squad to play for cup final places but admitted after the tally of dropped points at home reached an incredible 30 that he may have made a mistake.
“Their attitude was not right and if you get a bad attitude you going to get a bad performance and that is what we got,” he added. “I am culpable as well as I changed a lot of players to try to give everyone an opportunity to get in the frame for Saturday.
“I suppose by doing that it was a contributory factor to what happened.u00a0“I tried to be fair and give everyone an opportunity — maybe I was wrong.”
The only goal, ironically, was made by two former Liverpool players with John Arne Riise’s cross being deflected on to Skrtel by Alex Kacaniklic, formerly of the youth team.