SEVENTH HEAVEN FOR IN-FORM RYAN HAS SLAV THINKING BIG
Starlet’s scoring run fires Fulham
FULHAM boss Slavisa Jokanovic piled pressure on his promotion rivals after seeing his side put an end to Aston Villa’s winning run.
Ryan Sessegnon netted his seventh goal of 2018 and Floyd Ayite struck from 50 yards as Fulham kept up their own excellent form with a win they thoroughly deserved.
But while Jokanovic’s team are climbing towards the automatic promotion places with a sixth win in seven league games, their manager insists they have nothing to lose, and those around them might be getting nervous.
“I am not thinking about the top two, or about play-offs,” he insisted. “It will depend on how we prepare ourselves for the next step.
“Everything is possible, but there are other teams. Cardiff have six points more than we have. For us it’ll be a big surprise if we finish in the top two. For them it’s different.
“We are going to try chasing them without any pressure. The pressure is on the teams in front of us. We’ve started to play good football in the last month.
“But we cannot be under any pressure. If we had six points more, we’d be under pressure, we wouldn’t be able to make any mistakes.”
Fulham made very few mistakes here. They went close twice in the first five minutes, Matt Targett firing wide and Aleksandar Mitrovic heading Ryan Fredericks’ cross just past the post.
Villa looked like a team just happy to avoid defeat rather than pushing for an eighth straight win, with Axel Tuanzebe and Ahmed Elmohamody often asked to double up on Sessegnon.
But Steve Bruce’s side are well drilled, and proved hard to break down.
Fulham continued to attack but created little, until an injury to Elmohamady forced Villa into a change at the break – a blow for a side already missing Albert Adomah and Jack Grealish.
Josh Onomah was not at fault for the opening goal, but it came when his man, Fredericks, was given space to attack. The full-back got to the byline and looked up, spotting that Sessegnon had drifted inside unseen. The cross was perfect, the finish precise – the 17-yearold’s seventh goal in as many games.
Fulham poured forward, sensing blood, and their second was handed to them on a plate. Sam Johnstone mishit his ball forward despite being under no pressure, and Ayite made no mistake, finding the net from the halfway line with the goalkeeper miles out of position.
Villa’s gameplan had been undone, and they never really looked like getting back into the game. In fact, Fulham might have scored more, Mitrovic forcing Johnstone into a good save, and Ayite heading over.
Bruce was left to rue the defensive lapse for the first goal,
and the injuries that led to it. “I always thought it would come down to whoever got the first goal,” he said. “There was nothing in it for an hour.
“You could see a bit of quality from them in the wide areas, but defensively we’ve worked it all week, on their strength in the wide areas to create an overlap. We’re disappointed that we’ve let one through.
“We had to change things again, with Elmohamady going off. It’s been a cruel blow for us, having already lost Albert and Grealish. They give us the penetration and the forward threat. You take away Elmo as well, then we didn’t have that penetration.
“When I opened us up and tried to get a couple of strikers on, Fulham enjoyed that.
“But we lacked that creativity and penetration we’ve had in abundance in the last few weeks.”