Martin Jol refused to be drawn into a discussion about the transfer speculation around the Fulham futures of goalscorers Clint Dempsey and Moussa Dembele after the Whites saw off Sunderland at Craven Cottage this afternoon.

Dempsey notched 23rd goal of the season with a fabulous free-kick from long range and Dembele restored Fulham’s lead only seconds after Phil Bardsley had equalised for Sunderland with a deflected drive from 20 yards. Both players have been linked with moves away from the Cottage in the close season, with their contracts due to expire in a year’s time, but Jol wasn’t about to discuss the futures of his either man during his post-match press conference.

If you don’t mind, I don’t want to think about that kind of negativity. I want to enjoy today and I enjoyed it before the match, which is probably the first time this season because there was not a lot to lose.

But, on the other hand, we thought if we would get a win under our belt, we could end up above Liverpool. If we had ended up with one point, we were certain of ending above Stoke, Swansea and all the other teams so it is great to have a win and we will be in top 10, which was our main target.

Jol feels Fulham are finally beginning to resemble the fluid, free-flowing side that he has sought to develop since replacing Mark Hughes last summer but remains frustrated at the inability of his charges to kill off their opponent.

If you played the way we played, you should have scored three or four goals and put it to bed and finish it off. That is not what we did but we are improving, we are getting better, we try to play our football and especially in the first half you saw we were the better team because of our style. If all the players will be here, we will only get better.