Slavisa Jokanovic has urged Fulham side not to underestimate Bolton Wanderers as they go in search of a sixth successive league win this weekend.
The Londoners have moved up to fifth in the Championship table after an exceptional January, which saw them win all four of their league fixtures. But Jokanovic has warned his players not overlook Bolton’s battling qualities. The Whites needed an injury-time equaliser from Tom Cairney to claim a point from this season’s first meeting in October and Wanderers defeated high-flying Bristol City at the Macron Stadium last Friday night.
Jokanovic told his pre-match press conference at Motspur Park this afternoon:
We can’t be overconfident. We need to be calm, show solidarity and respect our opponents. We can’t be overconfident. We need to be calm, show solidarity and respect our opponents. To be successful, we must be focused to avoid mistakes and a little bit lucky at the other end.
My target is the Bolton game and that’s it. I don’t know where we’ll finish but we will fight. We’ve made three good signings and they have brought more competition to the team. Dreams are for the bed. In real life, we have to do everything we can to win points. I trust we can win against Bolton.
Jokanovic revealed that Cairney resumed training this morning having been ruled out of Fulham’s last two games, but says he will leave a decision about the extent of captain’s participation this weekend until as late as possible.
Tom Cairney started working with us today. He lost many training sessions. Today he finished the work with the team without any problems. In the last few months we had many up-down situations with him. I expect he is going to be okay now and he is going to improve his fitness in the days and weeks that are ahead of us, and we expect we can enjoy the best version of Tom Cairney in the future. I will make a decision tomorrow.
The Fulham boss was full of praise for teenage sensation Ryan Sessegnon, whose six goals in January have put among the leading contenders for the league’s player of the month award. The young winger has already scooped the PFA version after winning the votes of supporters.
A lot of fantastic news is around him, and the latest of this good news is he is nominated to be Player of the Month. I believe he deserves it, but we are going to see tomorrow. Sess pushes himself to be better each day. We have the privilege to watch him grow up professionally and as a person.
He’s a young man who did an adult job with a lot of quality, but from another side his teammates have really supported him and helped him grow up in the right direction. Ryan returned this favour in the best possible way, and I believe we must be satisfied with him, and he must be especially satisfied with his teammates.
In a wide-ranging press conference, Jokanovic also corrected a report in this morning’s Times that he had enticed Aleksandar Mitrovic to Craven Cottage on transfer deadline day via Snapchat.
No, I’ve never used it in my life! Snapchat is probably a great story, a funny story but we use Whatsapp – it’s a similar word, really my kids use Snapchat. We used Whatsapp
