Arbeloa enjoying Fulham upturn after another win
Alvaro Arbeloa insisted Fulham have been on the right track all along after they made it back-to-back wins.
Oscar Bobb’s 80th-minute strike earned a 1-0 victory at Coventry, a week after the win over Hull.
The Spaniard came under pressure during a winless start, but said he never lost faith in the way his side were playing.
The head coach said: “When you are losing it’s difficult to say that you are doing so many things well, but I think we always believe that we are on the right track.
“We were working so hard, controlling the games. I think we lost games that we didn’t deserve. But that is football, and like today we took our chances.
“That is the most important thing, because we have an idea, we have a style. But at the end of the day the most important thing in football is results.”
Arbeloa felt the performance at the CBS Arena showed his players are learning how to manage different phases of a match.
“I think we are improving as a team. We are competing for 90 minutes,” he said.
“I talk to the players. It’s not about if we play 60 minutes or 30 minutes. You need to compete for 90 minutes, understand the game, understand what you have to do.
“Sometimes you will have to defend your box, sometimes you will control the game, and I think we did really well against a tough team.”
Bobb’s winner, his first Premier League goal for Fulham, came when he cut inside Jack Rudoni and curled a shot past Carl Rushworth.
Arbeloa wants the winger to show that kind of attacking intent more often.
“Sometimes you need to win games because of the quality of your players,” he said. “It was a good game as a team, but at the end the quality of Oscar in one moment decides the game.
“We have players that can make the difference, and they need to feel that they need to be aggressive when they have the ball inside the box. They need to try, and Oscar did really well.
“I think he needs to understand that he has to be aggressive, that he has the quality to win games, as he did.”
Bobb was replaced by Tom Cairney shortly after scoring, but Arbeloa said the change was not because of injury.
“It was a good moment for Tom,” he explained. “We need his quality, we need his experience. He knows what you have to do when you are winning.”
