Slavisa Jokanovic knows Fulham will need to be at their best if they are to maintain their excellent unbeaten run at Norwich City this afternoon.
The Serbian head coach told his pre-match press conference at Motspur Park that he feels the Canaries and Fulham are similar sides and that Daneil Farke’s team will provide a stern test of the Whites’ promotion credentials having lost just two of their last fifteen fixtures. Jokanovic feels that both sides are eager to keep possession and that could make for an intriguing contest at Carrow Road:
Norwich is a team who want to have possession, like us,. We’re probably going to have this kind of challenge, the challenge of taking on the pressure from their side and try and dominate them with the ball. They are not comfortable off the ball, we are more comfortable with the ball too.
The Fulham coach feels Norwich have plenty of strengths and has highlighted playmaker James Maddison as a player who could soon be gracing the top flight.
They’ve got a great squad, a great coach who tries to play good football with one of the more important talents in the Championship in [James] Maddison. In the future he’s probably going to be an important Premier League player and we must be careful about him, and careful about other parts of the team as there is quality in this side.
We must respect them, and first of all we must respect ourselves and support each other. We must push hard to do everything we can to win the game. They still have the option of fighting for the play-offs and we cannot relax. Norwich is one of the top teams who aren’t at the top of the table right now. I always believe we can win the game and I am sure my players are going to push hard to win three points.
Jokanovic also called on Fulham to produce a more complete display than their last outing against QPR, where the Whites surrendered a 2-0 half-time lead to drop points in the west London derby.
We expect we’re going to find a better performance than we found last time we competed, We’re playing against Norwich, a good team with acceptably good momentum – they lost only two games out of their last 15. We need to be ready to make many good things if we want to come back with the points from Norwich.
