Our Resilience

Following Saturday afternoon's draw against Bolton at the Reebok Stadium, Roy Hodgson highlighted the character shown by his Team to take a point back to SW6 on Saturday.

“We’ve got a point from a very difficult place today and I think it’s right to put that down to resilience and determination," said Hodgson.

“The players really worked hard to keep our shape and do the right things even if the ball doesn’t like us as much at the moment as it has in the past.

“It was a tough one for us - I thought Bolton did what they do well. There seemed to be an awful lot of projectiles flying towards the penalty area and we had to stand firm and rely very heavily of course on our outstanding goalkeeper to come and punch and catch the ball.

“I don’t think we were able today to really get the ball down and play as I’d have really liked.

"Having said that the pitch didn’t help in that respect and furthermore the opposition played the ball forward so early when it was cleared. They hit it forward into the area so often that I thought it was a war of attrition for large parts of the game.

“That’s the way the game pans out here and if you want to get something from the game you have to accept that and make sure you don’t succumb and luckily we were able to do that."

Fulham’s injury situation didn’t improve on Saturday when the outstanding Kagisho Dikgacoi was forced from the field of play with what appeared to be an ankle injury. Hodgson’s squad is currently stretched to the limits and Fulham's Manager is looking forward to welcoming back some First Team regulars over the coming weeks.

“To lose Bobby Zamora was a blow and to lose Dikgacoi so early in the second-half, when in the first-half he’d been arguably one of our better players, it did seem to be contriving against us. It was good to see Dickson Etuhu back.

“I fear that our injury toll will worsen because I don’t see Dikgacoi playing for a while. I can only hope that we get one of Davies, Gera or Zamora back because we are running very short of players.

“February is going to be a very difficult month. We’ve got to keep fighting, battling, working hard and doing all the things we do on the Training Ground. If you want to see the Fulham we are capable of being it’s going to be March or April - when the likes of Konchesky, Davies, Gera and Zamora come back.”