Goalkeeper David Button has called on his Fulham team-mates to pick up from where they left off before the international break when they return to Championship action against Birmingham City tomorrow.
The Whites are unbeaten since the start of the season and sit second in the table ahead of the weekend clash with Blues at Craven Cottage and, although Button concedes that the camp is happy with Fulham’s excellent start, he is keen to reiterate that it will count for nothing unless they continue to meet the high standards demanded of them by Slavisa Jokanovic. The former Brentford goalkeeper told the club’s official website:
Obviously, everyone’s delighted. It’s been a good start, but at the end of the day, that’s all it is – a good start and hopefully we can continue to build on that and carry on where we left off before the international break.
As a goalkeeper and a defender, you set out to achieve something and keeping a clean sheet means you can’t lose the game so the more we keep the better and, with the attacking quality we’ve got, we’ll no doubt win more than we lose.
Thursday’s training session at Craven Cottage was the first time that Fulham’s full assortment of summer signings had trained together and Button believes that the extra additions will give the squad greater strength in depth as they look to sustain that promising early-season form.
We’ve obviously signed a lot of quality players and I think it’s the first time with all the internationals that we’ve had, that everyone’s trained together, so there will be real competition for places now and, most importantly, I think everyone’s going about it the right way and pushing each other. We’re all good friends off the pitch as well. Obviously, with there being no loans now until January, it is important to have strength in depth – which we’ve got – and it’s gives everyone that little bit extra in training to know that you want to get the shirt ahead of your friend. But equally, if there’s injuries or anything like that, we’ve got more than enough players to step in and do a good job.
The 27 year-old knows that Birmingham will present a stiff test of Fulham’s credentials to last the pace at the top of the table, especially after they surprised one of the promotion favourites Norwich City last time out. Button believes that Fulham are a match for any side on their day – and finding the consistency that has been missing over the past couple of seasons is key to featuring at the right end of the table.
They’re coming in off the back of a good result against Norwich, so it won’t be an easy game, but certainly at home, with the way we’ve been playing, we’ll fancy ourselves to beat anybody. We’ve just got to make sure that we keep our standards as high as they have been before the little break. We’ve touched on Birmingham, we’ll do a little bit more tomorrow. We know that they will be physical and direct and they’ve got some strong players that we need to look out for. It will probably be a little different to what we’ve come up against, but nothing I’m sure we can’t handle.
