Fulham boss Slavisa Jokanovic backed to manage top team by captain Tom Cairney

Aerial battle: Tom Cairney, back in Fulham’s starting XI after injury, battles with Manchester City’s Fabian Delph at the Etihad
AFP/Getty Images
Giuseppe Muro2 November 2018

Fulham captain Tom Cairney has backed Slavisa Jokanovic to one day manage a big club despite his struggles at Craven Cottage.

Pressure is growing on Jokanovic with Fulham in the relegation zone and having not won a game in the Premier League since August.

The Serb takes his side to Huddersfield on Monday, with his position becoming increasingly precarious.

Fulham lost 2-0 to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup last night but the game at the Etihad Stadium was never going to have any bearing on his future.

Owner Shahid Khan has given his support for Jokanovic and Cairney is confident the 50-year-old will turn things around.

“One hundred per cent,” said Cairney. “He is a top manager and I have no doubt that he will manage a top team one day. His ideas, the way he thinks, the way he tries to get his teams to play, he is top drawer. Everyone is behind him.

“He took over two-and-a-half years ago when we were going to get relegated from the Championship and look where we are now. The last couple of months have not really gone his way but I think that is more down to us [the players] than down to him.”

Cairney feels Fulham need to get back some team spirit after losing their way this season. They spent more than £100million on 12 new signings in the summer following promotion and defender Tim Ream said last week that too many players lack fight.

In Pictures | Manchester City vs Fulham | 01/11/18

1/18

Cairney, who made his first start last night since August following an ankle injury, said: “We are conceding too many goals, I think that is obvious. And we have got to get that team spirit and togetherness back from last season.

“Once we do that I think we will be all right. There are a lot of new faces in, they all came in at the end of pre-season and the hardest thing is to gel as quickly as possible.”

Fulham were stronger defensively against City and, ahead of the Huddersfield game, Jokanovic will take some encouragement from the way his side played. They have conceded 28 goals in 10 Premier League matches this season but Jokanovic said: “This game served to show us that we can be a little bit more organised, make fewer mistakes, and it showed we can be a team off the ball, too.”

The fact Jokanovic sprung a surprise last night by naming his strongest available side explains why Fulham performed with credit. It was always going to be a tough game but their display contained a number of positives for Jokanovic to cling to ahead of the huge game against the fellow strugglers. Fulham looked much stronger defensively and there was a clear shape to the team for the first time in a while.

Pinned in and around their own penalty area and facing constant waves of attack from a strong City side that included Kevin De Bruyne and Leroy Sane, they were resolute and did not simply roll over.

Under pressure: Slavisa Jokanovic
Getty Images

City still created chances but Fulham got men behind the ball and were better organised than previously this season.

Cairney formed a strong midfield three with Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa and Jean Michael Seri. Jokanovic has been unable to get the trio together since the second game of the season at Spurs in August.

However, the centre-back positions remain a major issue. Denis Odoi and Ream, in particular, struggled. But Fulham can take encouragement from their improved performance.

Aleksandar Mitrovic again looked isolated up front but if they can build on this display against Huddersfield then Fulham will feel they can win that game and kickstart their season.

Huddersfield, whose manager David Wagner was in the stands last night, have failed to win this season and are rooted to the bottom of the table.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in