Marcus Bettinelli has challenged Fulham to build on their Boxing Day victory at Cardiff City and push for a play-off place with more consistent performances in the second half of the season.
The Fulham goalkeeper praised his team-mates for their defensive diligence and described Slavisa Jokanovic’s side as ‘unstoppable going forward’. The Whites ended Cardiff’s unbeaten home record with a 4-2 success that leaves them just six points off the Championship’s top six ahead of this weekend’s trip to Hull City.
Such is the growing confidence in the Fulham game, Bettinelli was adamant that Jokanovic’s side only thought about victory as they made their final preparations for taking on Neil Warnock’s men. He told the club’s official website this morning:
We said before the game in the changing room that we were here for three points to make it back-to-back wins. hat was the mentality we went in with, and the boys were fantastic. First half, at times we were unstoppable going forward, while defensively we showed aggression and commitment to win the first ball, the second ball, the third ball.
We looked really frightening going forward, and defensively we looked a lot more solid. Tim [Ream] and [Tomas] Kalas, I thought they were fantastic. As a collective we were disappointed with the second goal, especially so late on, but other than that they defended terrific. Cardiff are a big side, they throw a lot of crosses in, and they stood up to it really well, so did Denis [Odoi] and [Ryan] Freddo. The back four, and Kevin [McDonald] too, were fantastic the whole game.
Bettinelli believes there’s much more to come from Fulham, especially after a slow start and with the possibility of Jokanovic supplementing his resources during the imminent transfer window.
I don’t think we’ve even shown 75 per cent of what we’re capable of. January is around the corner and I’m sure the club will invest and buy the right players to give us a massive chance to get there. Last season was a great one for us, but that’s gone now and I don’t know why we’ve started a bit slowly but we’re beginning to find our feet and come into form at the right time.
The former England under-21 international felt Fulham were well worth their victory in south Wales and wants the team to maintain that level of performance as they look to extend an impressive recent run at Hull on Saturday.
It’s two wins now on the bounce, a huge three points we took home with us, and we’ll keep working and keep pushing to try and get some more wins. Everyone in the dressing room wants to be up there again. We came to a good Cardiff side who are doing really, really well in the league and – no disrespect to them – we were the much better team. At the end of the first half we could have been well out of sight. The way we play our football, we’re unstoppable at times.
We’ve got so much pace, so much power going forward, and if we get the defensive side correct, like we did against Cardiff, teams are going to struggle to stop us. We’ve got to do it right in both boxes, and we’re getting better at it. There’s still lots to improve on, and I’m sure we’ll do that, but we’ve got to keep this run going.
