Slavisa Jokanovic was left ruing two defensive mistakes which left saw Fulham drop two points against in-form Derby County at Craven Cottage this afternoon.
The Serbian coach was happy with the way his side took the game to the Championship’s form team, but lamented the basic defensive lapses that cost them the chance to climb closer to the play-off positions. A horrible error from Ragnar Sigurdsson handed Tom Ince his seventh goal in as many matches and Alex Pearce buried a free header after Fulham had rallied impressively to lead.
Jokanovic told his post-match press conference:
I cannot be completely satisfied. My team offered many interesting things but we paid a very expensive price after some mistakes. They didn’t put us under stress, and scored two goals so easily. We played all the football, we were the dominant team, we created many chances and scored two goals, but it wasn’t enough to win this game.
It’s not the first time, and we need to think about this problem and try and improve ourselves and be more solid and more competitive. So many times we [have] paid an expensive price. We have to be stronger.
Fulham opted to play Sone Aluko as a makeshift forward in the absence of the ineligible Chris Martin and Jokanovic was encouraged by the way they penned Derby back for long periods.
We went with Floyd Ayité and Sone Aluko in this area. Floyd scored the goal, we created many, many chances and we offered the better football.
My side must be clinical after their mistakes, and this was the situation that we found today in the game. But from another side, I can be satisfied. In my opinion we played very good football. When we start being more solid and cut out these mistakes, we are going to be higher in the table, and we’re going to be more competitive.
Jokanovic also revealed that Tomas Kalas will miss the remainder of the calendar year after injuring his hamstring during the first half.
It’s a hamstring and at this moment I don’t know exactly what happened with him. Guaranteed it will be two weeks he’ll be out of the squad, but I don’t have more information than that at the moment.
