Allardyce slams players over dissent

Fulham 2 Bolton 1

Poll booked more than half the Bolton side - which will now trigger an automatic £25,000 fine - and sent off El-Hadji Diouf after the final whistle as the complaints about his performance continued.

Diouf, skipper Kevin Nolan, Kevin Davies and Gary Speed had been shown yellow cards for showing their displeasure with decisions, with team-mates Joey O’Brien and Tal Ben Haim also booked for fouls on a day when Fulham’s Moritz Volz, Carlos Bocanegra and Liam Rosenior were cautioned as well.

Allardyce said: “Both sets of players and both sets of benches got frustrated by some of the decisions that were made but I don’t think it was that type of game.

“He saw it that way in his wisdom but you have to be in control of your emotions and Dioufy at the end showed immaturity by allowing his frustrations to spill over.

“I will have to deal with that behind the scenes as usual under our code of conduct. It’s disappointing with the sending-off and the amount of yellow cards. We could end up paying a heavy price later down the line.

“If those cards spill over into suspensions in January when five players are away on African Nations Cup duty it could be very costly.

“Anybody that got booked for mouthing will get dealt with and fined because that’s an indiscipline that I don’t like.

“But anybody that got booked for a tackle I wouldn’t touch them. I would encourage them to keep tackling.”

Fulham boss Chris Coleman agreed that the game had not been as dirty as the card count suggested.

He said: “I don’t think it was as full-blooded as 10 yellow cards but there you go. I thought we played very well in the first half and we could have gone in more than 2-0 up. We deserved the three points on the overall performance.”

Fulham had striker Brian McBride to thank for two early strikes, with Bolton’s reply arriving too late in the 90th minute when substitute Sylvain Legwinski put through his own goal.

Opta Fact: Fulham have won five out of five Premiership home games against Bolton

FULHAM: Crossley, Volz, Bocanegra, Goma, Rosenior, Radzinski, Diop, Malbranque, Boa Morte (Legwinski 61), McBride, John (Helguson 89).

BOLTON: Jaaskelainen, O’Brien, Jaidi (N’Gotty 32), Nakata (Okocha 53), Ben Haim, Gardner, Speed, Faye (Djetou 59), Nolan, Davies, Diouf.

Ref: G Poll (Hertfordshire).