Carlton Cole has been speaking about the fine line between victory and defeat and paid tribute to the performance of the team as a whole in last weekend's reverse at Bolton Wanderers.
The England forward heads off for Middlesbrough today with a determination to get a positive result in Wednesday's FA Cup fifth-round replay. Cole was in good form at the Reebok Stadium, leading the line with strength and skill. He came close to scoring on three occasions, seeing one shot blocked by Gary Cahill and two headers cleared off the line by Matthew Taylor and goalkeeper Jussi Jaaskelainen.
The 25-year-old also turned provider, sending Mark Noble clear with a perfectly-weighted through-ball on 36 minutes, only for the midfielder to be denied by the alert Jaaskelainen. Half-an-hour later, Cole was involved in the build-up for what turned out to be a consolation goal from midfielder Scott Parker.
The frontman admitted he and his team-mates were gutted to come away with nothing from a game that they dominated for long periods. "You could tell that the boys had come off the field really disappointed. As was said in the dressing room, it was the finer details in the first half [that cost us]," he said.
"We started really fast, pressurised well, but the fine details between the lines were the difference. When you are involved in a game like that, you know what they are all about and they just got a few decisions their way as well which didn't help."
"I'm not really bothered about my performance. I'd rather be talking about the team as a whole. I felt we knocked it around well and got about them but sometimes you just don't get the luck or the rub of the green. I had a chance cleared off the line, David [Di Michele] had two good opportunities and Nobes had an opportunity to shoot. These are the details that we need to brush up on because they win games.
"Even when we went 2-0 down everyone involved knew we could still get a good result. We still felt we weren't out of the game, which you sometimes feel against other Premier League sides at 2-0. Scotty got his goal and we felt it was our chance to progress and get an extra goal or two but it just didn't happen for us the way it should have."