Boss defends Bettinelli after Fulham loss

Kit Symons refused to blame Fulham’s FA Cup defeat against Sunderland on the dreadful error from Marcus Bettinelli that turned the tide in Tuesday night’s fourth-round replay.

With his team winning 1-0, the Whites keeper made a hash of a harmless cross, dropping it over the line.

“Goals are generally defining moments in games and it was obviously a mistake, but he’s been excellent for us and I’m certainly not going to point any blame at him,” said Fulham’s boss.

“He’ll be all right. He’s a very strong character. He’s been absolutely superb for us this season, so one mistake like that won’t affect him too badly.

“He’ll be disappointed obviously and a bit upset, but these things happen. He’ll dust himself down and get on with it.”

Symons added: “We hadn’t played particularly well [up to then]. I said that at half-time to the players.

“We needed to pass the ball much better than we did in the first half but we never really got our passing going all night.

“Tonight, the performance wasn’t there along with the result. I’m not sure why. We had too many off nights.

“We had a few enforced changes which didn’t help. Scotty Parker, our captain, was ill and Lasse Christensen was coming back from injury and we couldn’t afford to start him in two consecutive games – but I expected us to play better than we did.”

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