Riise injury sours Jol’s night
DNIPRO (1) vs FULHAM (0)
Fulham manager Martin Jol admitted John Arne Riise’s leg injury is “serious” after his team booked their place in the Europa League group stage last night.
The Cottagers lost on the night in Ukraine but last week’s 3-0 success in the first leg enabled their European adventure to continue.
However, left-back Riise left the action in the 22nd minute with a leg injury – and the summer signing could be absent for some time.
Jol said: “Riise has a serious problem with the leg, that’s why I substituted him with Matthew Briggs.”
On last night’s performance, the Dutchman added: “We didn’t want to lose, we wanted to defend our lead, to do our best.
“We are a great team and we were very good in defence. It was great that we won at home.
“We could be better in attack and I wanted to see more from Andy Johnson. We wanted to punish Dnipro for the goal when we went behind and I wanted us to take our chances to make it 1-1 at the end.”
Dnipro won thanks to Evgeniy Shakhov’s header, which came shortly after Riise hobbled off in the first half.
And coach Juande Ramos, the man who replaced Jol as Spurs manager in 2007, said: “I’m satisfied with my team’s game. We fought and we dominated during the whole game. We tried so very hard but what happened, happened.”
Fulham last played in the Europa League in 2009-10 when they reached the final, losing to Atletico Madrid.