We don't owe anyone an apology Parker hit's back at Jose

Scott Parker said Fulham do not owe anyone an apology after they made light of their fury at having to play Tottenham at just 48 hours notice by earning a deserved 1-1 draw.

Parker called the Premier League’s decision on Monday to cram this rearranged game into the Wednesday night slot as “scandalous” after a recent outbreak of coronavirus at the club, yet Spurs counterpart Jose Mourinho said the Cottagers should have to say sorry to everyone if they named a strong team.

They did that, with 10 of the players who played their last Premier League game on Boxing Day in the starting line-up, and Parker was rewarded with a performance that he described as “immense”.

They fell behind to Harry Kane’s first-half header but put up a spirited response after the break and earned a worthy point through Ivan Cavaleiro’s 74th-minute effort.

Former Spurs midfielder Parker, who also played under Mourinho at Chelsea, was in bullish mood after the game.

“Myself and this football club owe no one an apology because you can talk from the outside and people can see what they want to see and work out what the script was but it was far from that,” he said.

“There were two players on that pitch that had trained one day, come back from Covid and had one day’s training. Players had three or four dayss training.

“The issue was never about only having two days to prepare for it. I understand that. The issue was 16 days ago this game was scheduled in, since then 10 positive cases of Covid, staff as well, and then 9.30 on Monday we got told that we were playing in the game.

“People need to understand the predicament we were in. We are not making it up. We have been very open and had worries for the safety of others too.

“That was my worry, so we don’t need to apologise for anything. We came here with a performance and we go away with a pleasing result.

“I thought we were immense tonight, I thought we were superb with what we faced, with a lot of speculation and talk from outside and no one really knows the full extent. I was very proud because of what we faced.”