Slavisa Jokanovic was left to rue familiar Fulham shortcomings as his side surrendered the lead at promotion chasing Brighton and Hove Albion this afternoon to go down to a damaging defeat.
It looked as if the Whites might maintain their excellent away form when midfielder Kevin McDonald headed them in front from an early corner, but two second half goals – which Jokanovic described as ‘cheap’ – from Sam Baldock and Glenn Murray allowed the Seagulls to claim a vital victory and cut the gap to Newcastle United at the top of the table. The Serbian head coach felt Fulham had not done enough to capitalise on their dominance of proceedings in the first period and were too timid in their own box.
Speaking during his post-match press conference, Jokanovic’s disappointment was clear. He said:
We created many chances but we didn’t find the end product, we didn’t put the ball in the net. We conceded two very cheap goals and paid a hard price. Okay, if you don’t score the goals, then concentrate more and make sure you don’t concede the kind of goal that we conceded today.
It’s frustrating that we weren’t clinical enough in the first 45 minutes. In the second half I didn’t feel that they dominated us and made so many chances, but the half chances that they made resulted in two goals, which was the complete opposite to us.
Jokanovic described Fulham’s second half collapse as the culmination of ‘an ugly afternoon’ but backed his players to be able to recover from the setback swiftly and get their promotion push back on track.
We played very well in the first half and created the chances, but we didn’t score the goals. At the end, they punished us very hard. It’s a hard punishment for myself and our away supporters, but we have to be brave and believe in ourselves and each other, and push hard.
t’s an ugly afternoon for us. We are not happy, but we are going to try and play similar in the next game which is in front of us. I believe we are making progress, I believe we play very good football, I believe we created enough to go back to London with some points. But we didn’t do it.
