Neeskens Kebano was honest enough to accept that Norwich City fully merited their draw in Fulham’s first fixture of the new season – but believes there were plenty of positives to come out of the Championship opener at Craven Cottage.

Kebano came the closest to giving Slavisa Jokanovic’s side some real breathing space when his second-half shot came back off the far post, but Fulham had to settle for just a point after Nelson’s Oliveira’s late equaliser. The Congolese international felt the Canaries were good value for their point. He told Fulham’s official website:

We knew that it was going to be tough. They had many occasions to score, just like us, so this draw is fully deserved for them. It was a tough game, it was not against an easy team. We know Norwich only came into the Championship last year having been in the Premier League before, so they have some ambition, the same as us, to be promoted.

It was the first game of a long season, we can’t say there were too many negative things from the game. Everything that was less good in our first game we can easily correct. It’s true that we found some space in the wide channels but we couldn’t negotiate it better than we did.

When I saw that my shot hit the far post in the second half I was annoyed, I thought next time I will get it but I didn’t have another chance to shoot, so maybe in the next game.

The popular winger was delighted to get ninety minutes under his belt after an injury-disrupted pre-season, even if he described the last few minutes as ‘tough’.

It was my first game for a few weeks. Before that I played two games in pre-season, 45 minutes each, so I felt good for myself. Those last few minutes were tough, I have to just work in that direction to be better, my physical condition is only going to get better, and this is good.

I think in this game we didn’t drop everything that we achieved last year, we kept a lot of the good things and that is why we could play a good game because we are used to it. We just have to build on everything to be better and to play even better, and we are always working hard. We know that we are a good team, we just have to keep on working hard and then we will be a very, very good team.

Kebano was full of praise for the three new signings – Oliver Norwood, Ibrahima Cisse and Aboubakar Kamara – who featured against Norwich.

There were some new boys making their debuts and they played well, they have come to help the team and they just need to keep doing what they are doing and they will do better, so I don’t have any worries about them.