Roy Hodgson was delighted to see his Fulham side claim ‘probably our best victory in Europe’ and described the first leg win over Shakhtar Donetsk as ‘an important scalp’.
The Fulham boss saw his side score early through Zoltan Gera and then, despite being pegged back just before half-time, produce a much better second half performance. The Whites will take the narrowest of leads to the Ukraine thanks to a sublime strike from Bobby Zamora.
We’re very happy to get a victory against such a good team. It was a very exciting cup tie played in the right spirit and it was very competitive. Both teams tried to pass the ball.
I’m pleased to have taken such an important scalp. It’s a big game for Fulham and we’ve come an awful long way.
If someone had said to me during my first season here when we were battling to stay in the Premier League that we’d beat Shakhtar in a couple of years, I’d have thought they were taking the mickey.
We’ve done it and are very proud of it. There’s an awful lot left in this tie because we saw how skilful they are, but we still have a chance to make a name for ourselves. This was a very good victory – probably our best in Europe.
It was a wonder strike. He’s got two feet, I don’t know which is his best and neither does he.
Apart from his accomplished display as a target man setting things up, working hard, his strike was of real quality. We’re talking about a striker who has scored 14 goals in 31 starts. I hope he can get 20 goals to crown his season.
Roy was just as pleased with Fulham’s grit and determination.
Shakhtar were exceptional in the first half and maybe we got a bit scared in that situation and weren’t prepared to get on the ball as much as we normally do. But we pulled ourselves together in the second half. We don’t come up against sides like this week in, week out and we had to really dig deep to get there.
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