History was made at Anfield and it was a slice that drew fierce condemnation of Liverpool from Kenny Dalglish as Fulham recorded their first ever league win on Merseyside at the 49th attempt.
This was no way to prepare for an FA Cup final. The only consolation for Liverpool is that this team will not be appearing in it.
Dalglish invited several fringe players to push their claims to face Chelsea at Wembley on Saturday. They declined en masse, producing the lowlight of an already dismal home campaign and allowing Fulham, with the manager Martin Jol absent because of a chest infection and the assistant Billy McKinlay in temporary charge, to take three points for the first time on Merseyside soil.
Their return from 48 previous trips to Anfield and Goodison Park read 37 defeats and 11 draws. The end of that dismal sequence should have been much more emphatic.
“The attitude wasn’t right,” the Liverpool manager said. “If you’re going to go into games with a bad attitude, you will get nothing from the game — and that’s what we got. A bad attitude leads to a bad performance. I am culpable too, because I gave people an opportunity to put themselves in the frame for Saturday. I suppose that was a contributory factor.”
Dalglish delivered a similar rebuke after the league defeat at Bolton that preceded wins in the Carling Cup and FA Cup against Manchester City and United.
