Fulham boss happy with defence ahead of Cats trip

Fulham manager Slavisa Jokanovic was pleased with his side’s defensive display in Saturday’s 1-0 win against Birmingham City, but wants more goals.

Fulham are the visitors to Sunderland on Saturday, while Birmingham follow on Wearside a week later.

A first-half strike from Sheyi Ojo was the difference in a game which saw Jeremie Boga miss a second-half penalty.

“We must be satisfied that this is the second time that we have won at home with a clean sheet,” said Jokanovic.

“This is good news for us, we are solid at the back and we believe Birmingham only had one attempt on the target.

“We try to play with a different shape, to create the chances and score the goal. I believe we dominated the game and did enough to score more goals.

“We have the space to improve and we can play better than we did today, the solution is to score the second goal.

“We can pay an expensive price with one mistake.”

City boss Steve Cotterill admitted Birmingham are under pressure due to a lack of goals.

And he believes his side must start converting their chances to end their run of bad luck.

“The second half again I thought we created more chances.

“We’ve got to put one of them away,” he said. “We deserved the penalty, when it comes you are hoping that it goes in. It sums up our luck at the moment.

“We’ve had two days preparation and it’s quite a changed team. I think that might have been Josh DacreCogley’s first game and Cohen (Bramall) may have had one start previously.

“For those two lads to be thrust in like that, it was tough for them.”

Fulham took the lead in the 14th minute from Ojo, who was able to direct his first-time effort past Birmingham goalkeeper David Stockdale from Neeskens Kebano’s cross.

Kebano was foiled just before the interval when he shot was palmed away by Stockdale.

Fulham should have put the game beyond reach with two chances in the space of a minute, Aboubakar Kamara shooting wide and Stefan Johansen being denied by Stockdale.

Birmingham should have punished Fulham in the 75 th minute from the penalty spot after Kevin McDonald fouled Emilio Nsue. However, the resulting kick from Boga was blasted over the crossbar.