Fulham’s new Mexican left back, Carlos Salcido, had a telling impact on Saturday’s Barclays Premier League encounter against Blackburn Rovers.
Salcido delivered an inch perfect cross from the left flank in the second half for Clint Dempsey to bury the ball past Paul Robinson and earn Fulham another valuable point on the road.
Manager Mark Hughes was certainly impressed by Salcido’s performance at Ewood Park and clearly believes the defender will become a key performer for Fulham over the coming seasons.
“I was really pleased with Carlos’ debut against Blackburn,” Hughes told fulhamfc.com. “He hasn’t had a lot of time with the Team in training but obviously he very quickly understood what the game [against Blackburn] was about after a nervous couple of minutes.
“He [Salcido] looked like he was really enjoying himself at the end of the match and produced a great ball for the equaliser. He’s going to be a really important player for us.”
Fulham were without Bobby Zamora for the first time on Saturday and whilst Hughes acknowledges that his Team will sorely miss the England international striker, he evidently believes Fulham have an array of attacking options to cope in Zamora’s absence.
“Last Saturday was our first game without Bobby and obviously we’re going to miss him because he’s a quality player and he was the main focus of our attack. That was the intention this year and Bobby was going to be a big part of what we did.
“Unfortunately he’s going to missing for possibly five months and we’ve got to get on with it. I’ve got good players that can come in and have an impact for us. We can’t look at players that aren’t here – we’ve got to look at the ones we have and make sure they have an impact and I think they did on Saturday against Blackburn.”
Fulham remain unbeaten in the Barclays Premier League after five competitive matches and the Team is clearly benefitting from Hughes’ positive, attacking approach, with Fulham picking up three points from three testing encounters away from home so far this season.
“We’re trying new things whilst keeping a lot of the good work that was in place. Obviously we’re not dismantling that but we’re adding a more positive slant to the way we approach games, certainly away from home. You could see that in our play on Saturday and I think we’re better for it.”