Ryan Fredericks says Fulham used the frustration of a painful defeat in Brighton and the lessons they took on board from their second half collapse to keep their composure and put Reading to the sword in such impressive fashion on Saturday.
Slavisa Jokanovic’s side were so clearly on top during the first half against their promotion rivals that it was slightly baffling that they only had the slenderest of leads going into the half-time break. Fredericks, who made the opening goal with a devilish cross that Chris Gunter contrived to inexplicably head into his own net, told the Fulham official website that the dangers of sitting back on a narrow lead were reiterated during the half-time team talk.
Although we were winning, it was so frustrating at half-time, the same scenario as the last week. But we took that experience from Brighton and how we felt after the game. Coming in at half-time and only being 1-0 up despite dominating, we knew that Reading were still dangerous, they’re third in the league for a reason.
So we knew we had to up the tempo even more in the second half, and once we got goals two and three we knew the game was as good as over. We’ve outplayed pretty much everyone we’ve come up against this season, and we know we’re millimetres off doing good things this year and finishing up in a good position.
The right back, now enjoying a regular run in the side after a frustrating three month spell on the sidelines with injury at the start of the season, says that the confidence is now high at Motspur Park.
We’re 10th in the table, but that’s only a few points off fourth place, so as long as we keep playing like that then we’re going to be up there.
He says the seeds of the eye-catching demolition of the Royals were sown on the Motspur Park training pitches, where Jokanovic and his coaching staff drilled the Fulham players on the specifics of a high pressing game and playing high-tempo adventurous football.
We worked on it all week, to be fair. he Gaffer set us up really well. They said we’d get chances from it and that’s exactly what happened. From Tuesday morning we were working on it and we put it into practice. All the lads, from the goalkeeper to the strikers, put the gameplan into place perfectly.
Reading sort of played into our hands a bit. If you come here and try and play it’s going to be tough for you because we’ve got such good players that we’re going to keep possession of the ball for most of the game.
