Tim Ream believes Fulham’s seven game unbeaten run since Boxing Day has been crucial in further the club’s promotion ambitions and insists a make-or-break run of fixtures over the next six weeks doesn’t hold any fears for Slavisa Jokanovic’s squad.
The American centre back takes a slightly different view to many observers in believing that the strong sequence of results after Christmas was the turning point in the Fulham’s season. Ream told GetWestLondon’s Ryan O’Donovan that, whilst many of the fans were looking forward to taking on a number of the Whites’ promotion rivals over the next few weeks, he felt Fulham’s recent results were crucial in boosting the squad’s confidence:
To be honest, I think the last five or six going back to Boxing Day have been season defining and we’ve done incredibly well to build the momentum we have we need to continue that. To stay in the play offs, we need to beat around us and to possibly get to that second spot we definitely have to take three points from the team around us and that’s what we’re looking to do.
For the longest time at that first half of the season it didn’t look like it was going to come together and for whatever reason, right around the holiday period it all clicked. Everybody knows their roles now, guys can come in and out and change the game. You’ve seen that over the last nine games and it’s been positive all around and the team is really clicking.
The St. Louis native did recongise the importance of the next few fixtures, but is confident that Fulham can prove their promotion credentials in the weeks ahead.
Nothing against Bolton, but the next five, six, seven games are all against teams that are in and around the play offs so we’ll get that out of the way, take the point and get out of here and get back to London and work hard this week and prepare for the really difficult games in the coming weeks.
We’ll take it one game at a time, you don’t want to get too far ahead of yourself and look too much at the table. You have to take it one game at a time because it doesn’t matter what you do, or the amount of points you take at the end of it if you don’t start it right. We’re just going to focus on getting three points against Villa.
Ream admitted that only collecting a point on his return to Bolton, where he spent three seasons, was disappointing given the flying start Fulham had made at the Macron Stadium.
I’d say it was two dropped [points] to be honest with you – it was a incredible start for us scoring within the first five minutes and it’s a wonder strike from them. To concede like that you hold your hands up, but at the end of the day Abou[bakar Kamara] comes on and has a clear cut chance in front of goal and we had so many chances in front of goal in the last 15 minutes. Stef [Johansen], Sess[segnon] and Abou almost getting in on goal again, Mitro[vic] curled one just wide too so it definitely feels like two dropped.
