Jol praises Taarabt after derby defeat

Boss Martin Jol praised Adel Taarabt after the Moroccan impressed on his home debut for Fulham.

The Whites were beaten 3-1 by Arsenal at Craven Cottage, where Darren Bent – who scored their goal – and Scott Parker made their debuts.

And Taarabt, on loan from neighbours QPR, did well before going off in the second half.

“From what I saw today, and last week, and in training, he’s doing different things – things we haven’t seen before, so I’m very happy that he’s here,” said Jol.

Olivier Giroud opened the scoring early on and Lukas Podolski grabbed two either side of half-time in a comfortable victory for the Gunners.

Jol said he was happy with his side’s efforts but admitted a lack of quality in both penalty boxes cost them.

He said: “I thought the first half was OK but they scored two goals out of the blue. I don’t think they had a lot of chances in the first half.

“We lacked a cutting edge up front. You have to take your chances and be more greedy.

“We had to change the shape to accommodate two strikers [Dimitar Berbatov and Darren Bent].

“But [Santi] Cazorla’s an amazing player, he pulled the strings. Usually we are quite organised but on the break they found the space to hurt us.

“If we’d scored another goal we could have made it difficult for them.”

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