Slavisa Jokanovic urged his Fulham players to be brave and believe in their ability after his side squandered another lead late on against Middlesbrough at Craven Cottage yesterday.
The Serbian head coach was exasperated on the touchline after Cyrus Christie’s 88th minute strike after Fulham failed to clear a corner cancelled out Aboubakar Kamara’s first goal since signing from Amiens in the summer. Jokanovic isn’t about to change his style and felt his team’s display against a side unbeaten in seven games was their most complete home performance of the campaign so far.
In my opinion we are close to our maximum level, I cannot be disappointed with our performance, it’s one of the best performances against one of the best teams in the Championship. We controlled the situation against two very, very strong strikers and they didn’t create many things.
I can’t be satisfied with the result. But we performed well and created many chances. In my opinion, we’re close to our best level, but even with this we still don’t win games.
A popular question is always where was your Plan B, C, D or E but if this plan is not better than Plan A, then it does not make sense for another plan. The solution is keep going and be brave and push in a similar way. We are going to try and win the game in a similar way that we tried this afternoon.’
Jokanovic was pleased with how his introduction of Kamara, who linked up encouragingly with fellow August arrival Rui Fonte, altered the course of a tight contest. The French striker soared majestically at the back post to put Fulham ahead, showing admirable persistence after spurning a glorious opportunity to break his duck minutes earlier after a fine one-two with Fonte, and added more zest to the attack after replacing Stefan Johansen.
We tried to take some kind of risk and we know we can lose a little bit of control without Stefan but we tried to go and win the game and he played well in this period of the pitch and scored a very good goal and this is very good news for himself.’
The Fulham boss confirmed that Floyd Ayite, who limped off before half time, had injured his hamstring and is likely to face another frustrating period on the sidelines.
