Fulham manager Slavisa Jokanovic believes Fulham will head into the Derby County game with confidence after getting into a position that no one thought they’d be in.
Back when the two sides first met, a 1-1 draw saw the Whites drop to 17th position in the Championship table, with most not giving them any chance of making the play-offs, let along challenging for automatic promotion.
A run of 24 games with just one defeat has now seen them into the end of season showpiece, with Derby the opponents in the play-off semi final, with the first leg at Pride Park on Friday night.
And despite that one loss coming last week against Birmingham City, where a win would’ve seen the side automatically promoted, Jokanovic compared it to a game of tennis, where his side have dropped a set but must now bounce back.
He said: “I repeat, our season was fantastic and many teams want to be in this position.
“Nobody believed in us in the middle of December, nobody believed we’d be in position to fight for the Premier League.
“Now, we are in situation with three games ahead of us and we are with great confidence and we have great chance to be the team in the Premier League.
“This is our target and like in tennis, we lost one set and we must be ready to keep going and be ready to cross this line.”
It would be easy for a team that came so close to promotion, only to fall short at the final hurdle, to drop their heads and lose confidence in themselves, but Jokanovic insists that isn’t the case for his Fulham stars.
Like tennis players have to recover from dropping sets immediately, he believes his side have shown great attitude on the training ground ahead of tomorrow.
He added: “I try make some comparison and at the end important champions have important champions mentality and that’s it.
“In this profession you must be ready for everything and don’t have the time, I try compare the things, these people have few seconds to recover the mentality and be ready for next step.
“Behind us is a few days and I see my team completely ready with great attitude on the training ground and I observe them ready for the play-offs.”
