Slavisa Jokanovic is pleased by Fulham’s unbeaten start to the season but has insisted his players will not be resting on their laurels – and has challenged his side to continue their excellent early-season form at Blackburn Rovers on Saturday.
The Serbian head coach, who led Watford to promotion two seasons ago, knows that nothing is won in August and is well aware of the unforgiving nature of the Championship. In his pre-match press conference ahead of the weekend trip to Ewood Park, Jokanovic reiterated that his focus is merely on the next fixture and keeping his players focused on the task at hand.
This is only the beginning of the season. We played four games, there’s 42 games to play in the Championship this season, and anything can happen. We have made a good start but the job is not done. We are fighting to improve ourselves and sign new players and be strong in the future.
We are still in August and our final target that we’re going to try and reach is in April/May. This is a very long way in front of this club.
Our job is simple, and supporters are going to judge and observe us in every game. I believe we’ve got a good start behind us, but it’s only the start. We haven’t done anything important at the moment.
Jokanovic wants his team to finish the month ‘in style’ following an impressive EFL Cup win over Premier League Middlesbrough with three points in Lancashire.
It could be very important for us to finish August in style and be ready to make a good result at Blackburn. This situation can encourage us to work with more desire still, with more ambition, and in better ambience to prepare for after the international break.
The Fulham head coach also hinted the club are close to signing a new forward, which he has craved since the summer departures of previous striking duo Moussa Dembele and Ross McCormack, in the summer.
Generally we haven’t covered the position of striker and we don’t have enough people in this area – we are talking about a position that we still have to cover and I think we are going to sign one or two strikers. Actually right now a player is in our building [Motspur Park] and is very close to becoming part of our club.
