Tom Cairney has called on his Fulham team-mates to use the disappointment of conceding a last-gasp equaliser at Leeds last night as motivation for Saturday’s home clash with Cardiff.
The former Leeds midfielder’s second goal in as many seasons at Elland Road looked to have clinched the points for Fulham at Elland Road, but a sensational overhead kick from Chris Wood in stoppage time ended the Whites’ 100 per cent start. Cairney, speaking to the club’s official website after the final whistle, couldn’t hide his disappointment:
The boys are devastated. I think to give Leeds – I’d call it a football lesson – for basically eighty minutes or whatever it was and not to get the three points is devastating. I never felt like we had it 100% but the way we’ve been playing I felt like we were going to win. The guy [Chris Wood] scored an overhead kick, maybe we could have defended it better. We’ve got to see out these leads – to play like that and come away with what feels like nothing, we can’t let it happen.
I think we’ve got to try and take that frustration out on Saturday against Cardiff. If anyone said we’d have had this start, we’d have took it but I suppose you’ve got to look on the other side of it – we’re still unbeaten in the league, joint top. We can’t keep beating ourselves up, we’ve got to recover and put in another performance like that and hopefully we’ll win more games.
Cairney described his brilliant goal as an instinctive finish after Sone Aluko’s free-kick had been charged down by the Leeds wall.
The ball ended up with [Kevin] McDonald and he rolled it in to me and I knew the man was tight and I just rolled him and I didn’t look at the goal, I knew where it was, and I went to whip it in the back corner and it flew in.
The talismanic midfielder, who has been a rich vein of form at the start of this campaign, believes that the confidence generated in the first two weeks of the season can help the squad and wants Fulham to replicate what Slavisa Jokanovic described as their best performance when Cardiff come to Craven Cottage at the weekend.
We’ve had a lot of games in a short space of time. We’re still in the [EFL] Cup as well, so I think if we can put in a performance like that at home on Saturday, I’m sure we’ll be a force to be reckoned with.
