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Injury update
Michael Brown isn’t fit for Saturday’s game but Papa Bouba Diop is back in the squad. Tomasz Radzinski played 90 minutes on Wednesday night for Canada and is a little bit fatigued so we may or may not start with him. Everybody else is okay.
It’s testament to guys like Moritz Volz and Carlos Bocanegra who’ve been playing in midfield instead of Bouba and Michael. They’re not midfield players but they’ve been doing a great job for us. We’ve lost key players in midfield but we’re still in the top ten so I think the lads have done a tremendous job.
The return of Papa Bouba Diop
Bouba has such presence on the pitch but this season he has not been the force that he can be. To be fair he’s been away on international duty and he’s come back carrying an injury. He knows he has to focus on Fulham and that’s his priority.
It takes so much out of him when he goes away with Senegal because they play all over the world and it’s the travelling. When he’s with us he trains properly Monday to Friday and he’s a force, but when he’s away his training programme obviously changes. It’s something we’ve talked about with Papa and he agrees with us.
Once we get him back to his best we know we’ve got a very good player on our hands.
Liam Rosenior’s international prospects
Liam is doing great and improving all the time and we tend to forget how young he is. Liam’s going to be a very, very good player if he keeps doing what he’s doing, which I’m sure he will. He’s a very level headed young man and he wants to learn and progress. One day he’ll get his chance on the international stage.
I think Gary Neville is the best right back in the country and I don’t see any signs of him tiring. Every time I watch Manchester United play he is always one of their best players - he’s been a terrific professional and ambassador for football. You have to look at the other right backs in the country but if Liam keeps progressing he’ll get his chance in the future.
Recent media speculation regarding Fulham players
There have been two different stories over two weeks in the same paper, about Collins John and Heidar Helguson, our two strikers who are not in the team at the minute. Those two guys are lovely lads and there’s no problem with myself or the players, I think stories get planted by agents because of the transfer window coming up and maybe they want to earn themselves a few quid. Both stories are absolute nonsense. CJ and Heidar – their futures are with Fulham and it’s as simple as that.
I’m not looking to sell any of our players but the news stories are out of my hands unfortunately, but my players are fine. They love being at Fulham and of course they are frustrated that they are not starting, but they understand that we have played different tactics to get results, but any player who isn’t playing gets frustrated and I wouldn’t want any player to be happy being on the bench, I want them to be hungry to play.
Saturday’s game against Manchester City
We’re playing a team that haven’t conceded a goal at home this season and they’re very hard to play against. It was a good game last season. It’ll be a tough game for us in a fantastic stadium. We’re in a good position and a win tomorrow will give us 20 points which will put us in an even healthier position.
We’re six weeks off Christmas and our goal is to get two or three more wins before then and remain in the top ten. I’ve said every year I’ve been in the job, can we get to 40 points with ten games to go, which is very difficult, but without getting carried away we’ve got a chance to do that. We want to get to 40 points as soon as possible and after that we can start talking about how high we can finish.
We’re away again on Saturday and it’s important we get something from the game. We’ve scored 8 goals away from home this season so we’re doing something right. We’ll be hard to beat tomorrow and we want to come back with something.
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