REAM: DON’T LET BAD DAY AT OFFICE SPOIL OUR CAMPAIGN

TIM REAM surveyed the wreckage of a horror show and told Fulham not to let one meltdown ruin their season.

Bizarrely, boss Marco Silva took issue with Nat Chalobah’s red card, even though his challenge looked worse with each replay. But the Cottagers reacted poorly to falling behind and kingpin Aleksandar Mitrovic retiring hurt before the break.

Skipper Ream warned: “We can’t allow a bad day at the office to negate all the good things we’ve done up to this point. We’ll look at it, we’ll analyse it and we’ll see where we went wrong – not that we need to know. We already know where we went wrong.

“It’s fair to say we never recovered from the red card, but that’s on us. That’s on the guys who are out there, making sure that we stay solid, compact and an organised unit – but we weren’t able to do that.

“We’ve done far more good things this season than poor ones, and that’s the message. One bad result must not take away all the other good things we’ve done. That was the discussion in the changing room, that’s what we will fall back on and we’ll take that on board going to West Ham next week.”

Early red cards seldom, if ever, make for an even contest or a pleasing spectacle, and VAR has ruined more football matches than Boris Johnson, Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss have ruined safe Tory seats between them.

But in this instance, VAR Mike Dean was probably right to recommend an upgrade from yellow card to dismissal for Chalobah’s impetuous challenge (right) on Sean Longstaff after only eight minutes.