Willian has urged his Fulham team-mates to relocate the form that saw them surge into the top half of the Premier League table earlier in the season after the Whites suffered a fifth successive loss at home to struggling West Ham United yesterday.
Marco Silva’s side struggled to unlock a stubborn opposition defence and ultimately paid the penalty for Harrison Reed’s own goal midway through the first half. The defeat leaves Fulham stuck on 39 points – as they have been for almost a month – in tenth place in the table, but the wily Brazilian winger is eager to finish the club’s campaign on a high.
He told the Evening Standard after the final whistle at Craven Cottage yesterday:
“We will try to improve in training and will look to win the games ahead. We have been good this season, and played some good football and we want to get back to our best level. Of course we don’t want the season to end on a down, nobody wants that. We want to doing good things, and get back to that.”
Willian also refused to dwell on the absence of Serbian striker Aleksandar Mitrovic, who will be suspended for a further six games, whilst conceding that the centre forward has been pivotal to Fulham’s success this season.
“Aleksandar is a good player, a great player for us but we have players with whom we can find a way to play well still and win games. With Vinicius we tried hard to move the ball and have contact with him – sometimes we didn’t do that. But we created some chances, playing between the lines. He made a great pass to Andreas. But it’s a part of football sometimes – it can just not be your day, and then other times it is.”
