Castagne: Try To Achieve

With all its highs and lows, and persistent unpredictability, perhaps the most difficult thing to find in football is consistency.

But from his first Fulham start in the 1-0 win over Luton, summer signing Timothy Castagne has become a dependable performer for his new side.

The full-back’s solid showings in Kenny Tete’s absence have earned him a quiet respect from the Fulham faithful, and his summation of the season so far is typically understated.

“I think it’s been pretty good,” he explained. “I’ve managed to play a lot of games so it’s good.

“The staff have been great, the players have been great, and also life here is a lot better than in Leicester obviously because it’s London. So it’s been good.”

The August arrival had spent three seasons with the Foxes, memorably winning the FA Cup in his first, but the influence of Marco Silva was what persuaded him to move down south.

“I spoke with the manager in the middle of the transfer window. I liked what he did and what he said, and from then it was a bit of a waiting game but I was waiting to come here. I don’t regret that.

“He (Silva) has been great. He’s always pushing you and he has great ideas, so I really like what I’ve seen so far.”

Don’t mistake his humility for a lack of ambition, though; the 27-year-old’s conversation with the gaffer will have likely proven that he can more than match Marco’s motivation.

“I want to continue to play well here and try to achieve something. If it’s a cup or a European place, I don’t care, but it would be nice to get something.

“I think if you look at the table, we’re not that far. You just have to get a few results in a row, especially to get out of the red zone, but if we can string a few good games together, we can definitely look for the top ten.”

A win over Wolves on Monday night would do that top ten target no harm, but the opposition pose a tough test on return from the international break.

“It’s very important, we know that, but we try not to put too much pressure on ourselves.

“We know we had some games where we did well but maybe the result slipped away at the end, but we know we have to do better.

“It’s not like we’re playing very badly. We’ve just been a bit unfortunate, maybe through a lack of experience or maybe through small mistakes that can happen. We know it’s not too far.

“It’s not just about the strikers needing to score or the defenders needing to defend. We have to do everything as a team.

“We definitely need to score more goals, but we need better deliveries, we need better starts to games, we need better everything to score. And then defensively, we’ve had some mistakes so we need to clean those and then it’s going to be better.”