Team Adventure

Fulham kick-off the group stage of their UEFA Europa League campaign on Thursday evening at the Vasil Levski Stadium against CSKA Sofia. 

Speaking to the massed ranks of the media during Wednesday’s pre-match press conference in Sofia, Roy Hodgson spoke of the desire amongst the travelling squad to impress on Thursday night.

“We’ve signed a lot of new players in the summer and they’re champing at the bit to show what they can do in the First Team,” he said. “They’ve had to wait a long while for their chance because I’ve been quite conservative with my team selection.

“We’ve got a long season with many games ahead of us. That, plus the fact that we’re coming off the back on an international week, in which a lot of our players played two matches.

“I made the decision fairly early on that, with this being the first game following an international week and a very important game against Everton, this was the right moment to let one or two of the lads, who we’ve not seen too much of, show what they can do. Of course there are also people like Simon Davies who need games.

“I fully believe that the team we put out on the field will be a very competitive team. I have great faith in the players and there’s no point in signing players like Jonathan Greening, Bjorn Helge Riise, Zoltan Gera, Erik Nevland, Joe Kamara, Stephen Kelly or Chris Baird of you’re not prepared to use them.

“We are very happy to be in this competition, we’re looking forward to it, we think it’s a great adventure but we also think it’s a great adventure for the squad – not just eleven players.”