Slavisa Jokanovic has urged his Fulham players to focus entirely on the final game of the season at Sheffield Wednesday – even though the Whites are virtually assured of a play-off place after yesterday’s 1-1 with Brentford.
The Fulham boss saw his side edge ever closer to a top six place after they matched Leeds’ result yesterday and he doesn’t expect a monumental goal swing on the final day of the season.
I must be proud of how my team is working. We are virtually in the play-offs. In football many strange things happen. I don’t expect it to happen next weekend, and sure we can start thinking about the play-offs.
But our job in the regular season is still not done, we must rest our body and mind, and prepare ourselves for playing Sunday morning against Sheffield Wednesday. For us playing in front of a full stadium is a bonus. We are going to press and try our best to win the game.
The Serbian head coach, who took Watford to automatic promotion two seasons ago, is looking forward to his first taste of the unique drama of the play-offs.
I have never played in the play-offs. This is my first experience of this in the competition. It’s 25% chance for all the teams. We are going to play against more quality teams in this competition.
But at the moment I am thinking only about Sheffield Wednesday because they are the team we are going to play last up this season. When it comes to it we have enough experience to play against all the teams in the Championship, but in this moment we are fully focused on our next game.
Jokanovic wants his side to enter the play-offs in good heart – ideally after a win at Hillsborough. He also hinted that could rotate his squad for the trip to Sheffield Wednesday next Sunday.
It is always important to have momentum. At the end of the day we are going to play at a historical place like Hillsborough in front of 3000 of our supporters. We don’t go for a joke, we are going to try and prepare ourselves, be competitive, push hard and try find our style, and try to win the game. With this game in front of us we can try push ourselves to a higher level.
I agree we are in good moment of form, I don’t want to and cannot compare it to another team but we play with confidence. Some players have played many minutes so we need to try and find the best solution for how are going to play against Sheffield [Wednesday]. I don’t coach only 11 players. The whole squad now is thinking and working in the same direction and we move on to Sheffield Wednesday with confidence.
