Fulham forward Aleksandar Mitrovic has admitted that his ‘goals are like my babies’ as he prepares to make his Craven Cottage return against Crystal Palace tomorrow.
The Serbian striker says he will always wonder what might have been had he not been involved in an altercation with referee Chris Kavanagh as the Whites went out of the FA Cup – which saw him suspended for eight matches and briefly threatened to bring Fulham’s promising return to the Premier League to a shuddering halt. But he returned with a goal off the bench at Southampton last Saturday and told Sky Sports in a wide-ranging interview that goals are like his drug.
“I know in the past I’ve scored goals in any league I’ve played in: Belgium, the Championship, Champions League, Europa League, in Anderlecht, with the national team. I knew my ability to score goals and my abilities in the box if I have good service, I know I’m really dangerous against any opponent. I always play with that confidence.
It’s like a drug. If you score one, you want two straight away, you don’t think about the first goal. Give me the ball, give me the cross. You get upset! Every training I try to score goals, I compete with myself to score more than yesterday. If I didn’t have a good training session I stay afterwards and put a few balls in the net just to keep that feeling going. When you score goals you feel good. You can win by three or four and it feels nice but if you don’t score a goal you miss something.
I like tap-ins – it’s the right place, right time, you predict the game well and tap in. For a striker, the most important thing is to stay focused and predict what’s going to happen. Scoring a tap-in makes you feel really good because you don’t have to run 30 yards or dribble, you’re right there and just put the ball in the net. Every goal is important and special in a different way but they’re like my babies. Last year in the Championship I scored one with my knee and I was celebrating like it was a 25-yard free-kick. A goal is a goal, for me, it just needs to go over the line!”
Mitrovic also shared his emotional reaction to his return at St. Mary’s last weekend – revealing that he revels in the special bond between him and the Fulham fans.
“It felt really special from the first moment I entered the pitch in the warm-up, our crowd went crazy and even when I play in the national team I don’t see this many Serbian flags. It was really amazing moment. When I entered the pitch during the game, the crowd went more crazy than when we score. It was a really special and important moment for me. The amount of support I had was amazing and made it easier to go through all of this.”
