Slavisa Jokanovic felt his side deserved more from their Championship play-off semi-final first leg than a narrow defeat at the hands of Derby County last night.
Cameron Jerome headed the only goal to give the Rams a precious lead ahead of the second leg and, despite the visitors laying siege to the Derby goal in the second half, Fulham couldn’t force an equaliser.
Jokanovic told Fulham’s official website: “Definitely this is not the result that we deserved. But this is part of football to and we cannot be frustrated. We played some nice football and dominated Derby.”
“They scored after one cross and Jerome scored a fantastic goal. We were not clinical enough and especially in the second half when we created many chances without scoring the goal to get things level. We must not let ourselves get too frustrated and remain confident as we showed quality and had a good mentality. What we want to do is now change this story and win the game on Monday night and fight for the opportunity to play at Wembley.”
The Fulham boss feels the tie is delicately balanced ahead of Monday’s second leg.
“It’s dangerous for us and it’s dangerous for them to. We need to look forward and push to play our way. We need to be more clinical than we were today. We showed today that we can play good football but we didn’t score any goals.
This is sometimes the way of football. I have to credit Derby as they caught us and took their chance very well. We must remain confident and trust we can change this story.”
