There’s a lovely little interview with Jay Stansfield in today’s Times ahead of Fulham’s visit to Crawley Town in the League Cup this evening.

Jon West says that the young striker ‘is making a name for himself at Fulham,’ before conceding that Stansfield is already a household name in the south west, following the achievements of Jay’s much-missed father Adam, at Yeovil and Exeter City in particular. The teenager hasn’t talked much about his father, who tragically died of cancer aged only 31 in 2010, in public. He does touch here on how difficult his first Fulham appearance – when he came on as a substitute to help the Whites, then of the Championship, beat Premier League Aston Villa in the FA Cup third round a couple of years ago – with Adam firmly in thoughts.

“When I made my debut, it was quite emotional because I wanted him to be here when I was achieving this. Sadly he is not but hopefully he is looking down on me and proud of me. I don’t remember too much as I was quite young. I have had stories from my family: my mum always tells me how he dealt with things. I listen to people who were close to him. A lot of his close mates are managers, either in an academy or whatever, I talk to them quite a bit. I watch videos back as well. I have to keep pushing on and making him proud.”

Stansfield has certainly done that. He followed up an impressive cameo from the bench at Wolves with a display full of determination – and no mean skill – against Brentford at Craven Cottage on Saturday, where he was so unfortunate not to open his Premier League goalscoring account when a desperate challenge by Ben Mee diverted his finish onto the crossbar. Bobby Decordova-Reid tucked away the rebound to give Fulham a fantastic start inside the first minute.

You wouldn’t have known that Stansfield isn’t a right winger from the working over he gave the highly-rated Rico Henry, with the youngster’s work ethic exemplified by a lung-busting run of fully seventy yards to prevent the left-wing back from equalising in the second half. The teenager’s determination to make the most of his opportunity to impress – after injury to Neeskens Kebano saw a spot in Marco Silva’s starting line-up open up – was evident.

“When I saw my name in the [pre-match team] meeting I knew I was ready to go out and perform. On Friday night I had the best night’s sleep ever. I knew I had to be on top form for my first start in such a high league. The fans were brilliant, their support is always noticed.”

It is always nice to know as fans that our support helps a young player. As I’ve already written, Stansfield’s progression into the Fulham senior side is very special to me – but I’m sure we are all looking forward to seeing him pull on the Fulham colours again tonight.