Arbeloa praises players for fight as Fulham continue unbeaten run with Aston Villa draw

Alvaro Arbeloa has praised the attitude of his players as they fought back from a goal down to come away with a credible 1-1 away draw against Aston Villa.

Nicolas Jackson’s fifth Premier League goal of the season put the Villans 1-0 up when he ran onto Johan Manzambi’s pass and cut inside David Affengruber and Timothy Castagne to calmly finish past Bernd Leno.

But in the second half, Fulham were impressive, once again failing to convert their large number of chances that they created, something that is becoming a frustrating trend.

But with pressure come opportunities, and that is exactly what happened when Japanese keeper Zion Suzuki dropped the ball into his own net from an Alex Iwobi corner.

It was just deserts for Fulham, in another performance that shows things are close to seriously clicking, and Arbeloa was pleased with the fight shown by his players in the second half to get a result against an in-form Aston Villa side.

“We needed to fight more than we did in the first half, and we needed to play with character and with ambition,” Arbeloa said.

“And I think that's what we did in the second half since the first minute, and we did really well.

“Maybe we deserved a little bit more, because we have many, many chances to score some more goals, but at the end it’s one point in a difficult stadium, so I am happy because of the performance of my players.

“I think we did really well, against a Champions League team with a fantastic coach, and they beat Manchester City a week ago. They were in a good run, so I think we did really well today.”

The result ensured that Fulham are 15th in the Premier League table after nine matches, recovering well from being at the very foot of the table only a few weeks ago.

Things seemed dire when falling to a 2-1 loss to Ipswich and it looked like the only possibility was Arbeloa being sacked, but the Spaniard has rallied fantastically and the Cottagers are now on a good run of seven points from their last three matches, having earned just two from their first six.

Arbeloa’s side are very close it feels to going on an impressive run, with their style of football creating plenty of chances.

Against Villa, once again they had more possession than their opposition, with 55% and with that they managed to muster four big chances from their 14 shots.

Fulham actually created enough for 2.24 xG and when they do click and Gonzalo Garcia finds his form, it feels as though the Cottagers could well become a far better team than people ever gave them credit for.

Fulham face Newcastle next weekend in their final match before the international break, with the Cottagers looking to enter the international break in far better circumstances than they did in September.

And Arbeloa insisted that he was not worried by Fulham’s struggles in front of goal, saying that not creating them would be far more worrying than not taking chances.

“I think I would be more worried if we don't create chances, but we are creating chances, so we need to keep believing in the way that we are playing,” he said.

“We need to keep working on our finishing.

“Maybe sometimes we need to be a little bit lucky - we were today with the goal, but we missed our clear chances. 

“It’s about creating chances, don't concede chances, and playing in the way that we believe, and I think we did really well.

“We have a very difficult match [against Newcastle United] next Saturday at home, and yes, we need to continue growing as a team, because we are just starting. I'm so happy and so proud of my players.”