Ragnar Sigurdsson insists tomorrow’s trip to second-placed Brighton and Hove Albion holds no fears for Fulham after the Whites have built an impressive away record this term.
Slavisa Jokanovic’s side are the second best performers on their travels in the Championship and Sigurdsson, who has settled impressively into an encouraging partnership with Tomas Kalas in the centre of Fulham’s defence, feels that they will be able to give Chris Hughton’s side a real game. Speaking to FulhamTV in advance of the trip to the south coast, the Icelandic international side:
When we played Huddersfield, they were second I think, and we beat them 5-0, and we have lost some games this season where we were dominating the games, so anything can happen really. I don’t really care if they are second or fifteenth, we just have to bring our game and be ready, which we weren’t against Sheffield Wednesday. It depends on what we are doing.
It is kind of strange that we are performing better away but sometimes it is like that. I don’t know what the reason is. I don’t have the answer really – we try to win every game we play, so we are trying obviously to play better at home as well, but we are not afraid to play away games, we have shown that, so I think this [Saturday’s game against Brighton and Hove Albion] will just be a good match.
Things like this take time. Obviously it’s frustrating when you are not winning games but we know that we are building something good and positive. Sometimes, especially for away games, when you know the fans are travelling long distances to see us play and support us, obviously we want to give something back to them and sometimes, maybe if you’re not feeling motivated or you are not feeling at the top of your game, you always have the fans to help motivate you, playing for them, because they are there supporting you, so it always counts.
Sigurdsson feels that Fulham will need to improve on what he felt was a poor showing at Craven Cottage against Sheffield Wednesday last weekend – even though a late equaliser from Scott Malone earned the Whites a precious point.
We didn’t play a very good game in general [against Sheffield Wednesday], but at least we showed some character in the end and we were close to winning the game as well – so I think that’s important for us as a team to show that character. I think they played with poor character, lying down and stalling the game – for almost 60 minutes or something. I was very relieved that we didn’t lose against a team that plays like this.