Ola Aina was left frustrated by Fulham’s uncharacteristic mistakes on Saturday, but won’t be wallowing after the defeat by Manchester City.
A resolute defensive display in the opening 45 kept the likely Champions at bay, but within quarter of an hour of the restart they were 3-0 up.
“First half I felt like we really made it tough for them,” Aina told fulhamfc.com at full-time.
“We gave them a tough first half. I felt like we shut off their options, and we created a few openings of our own.
“And obviously in the second half it was a few mistakes that ends the game for us really.
“We haven’t had mistakes like that for a long time, since the beginning of the season.
“It’s frustrating that we made them because it’s not in our character, but these things happen. We’re only human.
“We have to take it on the chin and just move on. The mistakes have happened and it killed us a bit, but I feel the team still gave a good fight.”
The Whites will not be facing that calibre of opposition every week, but Aina insists that it was never viewed as a bonus fixture.
“Everyone knows about Man City, everyone knows they’re such a good side and they’ve got good depth in their squad, but we felt like we could’ve definitely got something from the game,” he said.
“If we don’t make the mistakes then we do give them a run for their money, in my opinion. But we have to just take it as it is and move onto Leeds.”
With a clear abundance of team spirit in the Fulham ranks, it seems unlikely that this defeat will hit the players’ confidence ahead of Friday night’s clash with Leeds United.
“No, no, I don’t think so,” Aina replied. “We’re raring to go, if we had Leeds in an hour we’d be ready to go. We’ll just recover well and get ready for that one.
“The position we’re in, we have to just take it game by game.
“Good or bad results, we have to take it and move on and look forward to the next one, because ultimately there’s a goal that we need to achieve at the end of the season, so we can’t dwell on bad results.”