Steve Kean is looking forward to Fulham’s friendly against Roma in Kapfenberg on Saturday and feels the Whites will learn a lot from a tough assignment against Serie A opposition.
The Fulham assistant manager told the club’s official website:
“It’s a good game to play in, we’ve heard that Roma are going to be bringing a few thousand fans over and the match is going to be shown on Italian TV so they certainly won’t want to be embarrassed by us. Even through the game is so close we’ve still got to do a lot of hard work. That could even include doing a session on the day of the game.”
Kean highlighted the contribution of Argentinian forward Facundo Sava, who has scored three goals in as many pre-season matches, as an example of Fulham’s wealth of attacking options.
“Facundo managed to get his head on the ball as the defender almost cleared it. He was very brave to put his head right where a boot was just about to fly in. [For the second goal] Facundo came toward the header and Steve Marlet gambled on Facundo winning the flick on. Steve took it on his chest and slipped it under the ‘keeper as he came out.”
Steve only played for half an hour because he’s had a bit of a stiff back of late; as a result his hamstrings were a bit tight as well. He’s not been in as many training sessions as the other guys so Cookie felt it was best to ease him in for 30 minutes. As soon as Louis Saha came on he started causing havoc with his pace. It was a great bit of play with Steed Malbranque in the build up to our final goal. Louis came towards the ball, Steed chipped it over the defender and Louis used his pace to spin around him. He was then brought down for the penalty.”
