Tom Cairney can’t wait to lead Fulham out in the Premier League after the Whites finished their pre-season preparations with an entertaining draw against Celta Vigo at Craven Cottage yesterday afternoon.
The Fulham skipper has long said that captaining the club in the top flight would be a dream come true and he believes the tough test ahead will mean that every member of the Fulham squad will have to do their bit. Speaking to FulhamFCTV after the 2-2 with the Spaniards, Cairney said:
Hopefully we can pack the Cottage and get going. It will be a massive achievement. I think it has been a few years since we were last there and I think the starting eleven will be buzzing to play and the bench will be raring to come on. It’s going to be a massive team effort throughout the season and we’re going to need everyone, including the fans, to get over the last this season.
Cairney believes the workout against a skillful Spanish side who posed Fulham real problems will serve Slavisa Jokanovic’s side well as they head into the final week of training before the big kick off against Crystal Palace.
It was tough in difficult conditions. It was boiling hot, it’s been hot for ages, no pre-season has been like this. We played against a top side, who played great football. That’s sometimes what we’re going to come up against this season – it was a tough test for us before the first game of the season, which is good.
We played good football. I think there’s still a lot of things to work on, defensively and going forward. Pre-season’s hard, hopefully the new boys can settle in and we can get more used to them. We played some good football and hopefully we can take that into [next Saturday against Crystal] Palace.
The Scottish international hailed the return of Aleksandar Mitrovic, who opening the scoring early on with a sublime strike and then laid on a second for Aboubakar Kamara. Cairney feels the Serbian’s physical presence lends an entirely different dimension to the Fulham attack:
I think it’s great for us to have him back. I think we wanted him back as soon as the [play-off] final finished in May. It was a great start for us within the first five minutes, so long may that continue. It’s brilliant. We’ve got a target man, someone who can roll defenders and you know he can finish. There’s not many of them around and I’m just glad he’s in a Fulham shirt.
