Matt Targett isn’t worried by the fact that one of Fulham’s loan rangers will have to miss out on the matchday squad each week – and the left back believes the competition for places can help fire the Whites into the Premier League.
The former England under-21 defender, who was one of three January additions to Slavisa Jokanovic’s squad before the transfer window shut last week, enjoyed an excellent home debut in Saturday’s 2-0 win over Nottingham Forest after being handed a first start having come off the bench to great effect at Barnsley last week. Targett joins Tomas Kalas, Lucas Piazon, Oliver Norwood, Sheyi Ojo and Aleksandar Mitrovic as loan options in the newly strengthened squad but Slavisa Jokanovic can only include five loan players in his eighteen for each Championship fixture.
The Southampton loanee isn’t fazed by that problem – and told GetWestLondon’s Ryan O’Donovan after the final whistle on Saturday that he feels the additional depth to Fulham’s squad could be a real asset as the promotion race heats up.
This will be the first time I’ve experienced that, it’ll be interesting to see what the gaffer does but at the moment all I can do is keep playing well on the pitch. If you look at the squad now, we’ve brought in two deadline day signings, the squad is in a healthy position and there’s competition everywhere.
Targett has adjusted quickly to life at Craven Cottage – something which he thanks his new team-mates for.
It takes time at the start, learning about different players, building relationships but the boys have welcomed me in with open arms. They’ve been so supportive and I can’t thank them enough for that.
He is already relishing the prospect of teaming up with Ryan Sessegnon down the Fulham left flank for the remainder of the season and the pair have already struck up a real understanding based on the evidence of Targett’s first two outings.
He’s an incredible talent, he’s only 17, it’s quite scary to be honest, but he will only get better and hopefully we can carry on building on that partnership. With the positions you take up on the pitch, he’s clever and got inside the full back and then run so for me it’s my job to deliver the ball to him. If he carries on making those runs I’ll do my best to try and find him.
