A modest Joao Palhinha insisted he was not the Premier League’s best midfielder – naming Manchester City’s Rodri as ‘a step higher’ – after Fulham’s 2-2 draw at Burnley on Saturday.
The Portuguese international told Capital Football:
“Rodri is a step higher than the other players in my opinion. But it’s good that people like and respect me [because] it shows that my job here has been good. I just focus on the job inside the pitch to try to get wins for my team, hopefully starting with Bournemouth.”
He admitted that Fulham sorely miss Aleskandar Mitrovic.
“You know what Mitro did here. He’s a player that all the teams, not just us, if every team had a player like him for sure they’d miss [if he left]. It’s not easy to replace a player like Mitro because he built a big history here. We’re missing him but the football is like that. We need to think of the players that we have and that’s it.”
Palhinha was bitterly disappointed that the Whites led a two-goal lead slip at Turf Moor.
“I think we started to give them some step to try to take something from the game. After the first goal that we conceded Burnley started to believe. We could kill the game more earlier in the second-half but it didn’t happen unfortunately. It’s really tough for us to return at home with this result after what we did. In my opinion Fulham played really well but the victory didn’t happen. But if we keep with the same focus and start taking the emotional control of the 90 minutes, we can soon get the victory that we want.
We had the control of the game even at the start of the second-half. It’s really frustrating and disappointing [to draw] after what happened in the game. We need to put the head up and focus on the next game against Bournemouth in our home.”
