Saturday's draw with Fulham was not the ideal way to start the season. In all honesty, we looked sluggish during the 90 minutes and a draw was probably a fair result.
We looked in good nick against Manchester City in the Community Shield, but Saturday showed you can’t take too much notice of results at times. Fulham hit the ground running and we struggled. They ruffled us up and tried to bully us, in many ways. I’ve never seen a team with so many players falling down and diving, and that was sad to see. Marco Silva has obviously told them to do that, but you can’t fault their commitment and desire. It’s an early lesson for us.
For Fulham's penalty, Virgil should have just stood up there and for once he made a mistake. He didn’t need to commit himself because Mitrovic was going nowhere and he panicked a bit. Mitrovic felt a slight bit of contact and played for the penalty.
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Fulham’s opening goal was a really good striker’s header. You can say Trent was at fault but the only way you can stop him there is to jump into him to put him off. Mitrovic was the reason why they got the result they did, he was excellent. One area we did let ourselves down in was midfield, though. Fulham were playing a relatively high line so they could get at our midfield and both Fabinho and Thiago were not themselves. That was a game where we really needed Fabinho because he is a physical presence and a scrapper, but we were outfought.
Although it is still early in the season, we can't afford to have results like Saturday's as that is what cost us last year. That was Fulham’s Wembley: first game at home to Liverpool, who went for the quadruple last season and are one of the best teams in the world. That was their cup final and they played like it. Because the stakes are so high when competing against City, you can’t afford to have those types of results. We’ve also got to do better against the likes of Chelsea, City and Tottenham as we only managed draws against the big six last season. We simply drew too many games.
Nunez is ready to lead the line from the off
I’ve always been a big Bobby Firmino fan but, for me, we win against Fulham if Nunez is selected from the start. He is ready to play - he showed that last week when he came on against City as well as in pre-season. I was the same type of striker to what he is and I can see he is ready to make an impact. It would have been a different outcome if he had started.
James Milner was another player who was subbed on at Craven Cottage and made a big difference as he was getting amongst them. You’d like to think the five substitutions rule will benefit us as it gives you more options to tidy games up or see them out. It’s all about when you put players on, how you put them on and how they affect games. It’s up to the manager to judge that as best as possible.
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