Sky Sports EFL pundit Keith Andrews has questioned the ambition of Aleksander Mitrovic following his decision to sign a new deal with Fulham after his prolific start to the campaign.

Mitrovic has been on fire for Fulham so far this term, with the Serbia international having taken his tally to 12 goals in 12 games following his brace against Queens Park Rangers on Saturday.

Those goals took Mitrovic’s overall Championship tally with Fulham to 50 goals in 69 appearances. That is an outstanding record and one of the best runs of form produced by any striker in the history of the English second tier.

The striker did endure a difficult season last year where he was often overlooked for starts in the Premier League by Scott Parker.

However, he was convinced to stay at Craven Cottage and sign a new contract following Marco Silva’s arrival after Parker left for Bournemouth.

That decision to remain with Fulham came despite Mitrovic having been linked with potential moves to the likes of Roma and West Ham during the summer transfer window.

 

 

Speaking on Sky Sports’ latest EFL podcast, Andrews insisted that Mitrovic is far too good to be performing at Championship level.

While although he said he feels for him after last season in the Premier League, he questioned his ambition in sticking around in the Championship.

He said: "He's enjoying his football clearly, he signed that new contract which in one aspect makes me think how ambitious are you because I do think he's better than this level. He's far better, he shows that week in week out that as soon as he brings his quality to the table he scores goals.

"You've only got to look at his first chapter in his Fulham career, we were all part of that season and he transformed their season coming in the January (window) he really did.

"I always think it's a little bit unfair for strikers in particular when they go up to the Premier League with the team that they're with because invariably you're not going to have as many chances, it's going to be very difficult.

“The hardest thing to do in football is to put the ball in the back of the net and so you're going from creating six, seven chances per game potentially to maybe only having one a game.

"So there is a level of, I kind of feel for him to a point, but at this level, he strolls, he can stroll and still score goals."

The verdict

You would say that Andrews is absolutely spot on when he says that Mitrovic is far too good to be playing in the Championship at the moment.

The fact that he has been able to fire home 12 goals in his first 12 appearances this season shows that Championship defences simply can not handle him when he is at his best, and he could very much be on track to beat Ivan Toney’s scoring record from last term.

It is clear that Mitrovic could and maybe even should be operating at a higher level than the Championship when you consider the quality that he has.

However, he is settled at Fulham and seems to have a good relationship with the supporters and if he could fire them to a third promotion this season in his time with the club then that would be an excellent achievement to have on his CV.