Stoke City boss Mark Robins has defended young goalkeeper Tommy Simkin after his mistake handed Fulham a late winner in their FA Cup fourth-round tie.
The match looked to be heading for extra time after Fulham's Kevin cancelled out Bae Jun-Ho's first-half opener.
But Harrison Reed intercepted a pass from Simkin, making his ninth Potters appearance in place of the injured Viktor Johansson, and Gavin Bazunu fired past the 21-year-old keeper to seal a 2-1 win.
"My teams play football and we want try and do that as well as we possibly can do," Robins told BBC Radio Stoke.
"The ball in that instance can go as far out the stadium as it needs to for me with four minutes to go when you're being pressed. Don't play into the press when the player's coming straight down the line of the pass.
"Tommy will learn from that, he'll get on with it and that's all you can ask from him. Other people can criticise.
"Unfortunately you've got to go through some of these moments when you're a young goalkeeper that's come in, and he's performing really, really well in the absence of Gavin and Viktor."
Robins has called on the rest of his players to learn from their near miss going into the Championship run-in.
"Trying to win the game was the mindset, to try and go through and go as far as you can in the competition," he added.
"We almost did it but I don't want to be an almost, nearly team and we will come out with better results in the future.
"It is disappointing to go out, but now it's done we look back and we can be pleased with a lot of elements of that performance to take into the 14 games that we have left."