Lawrie Sanchez has insisted that Fulham are no longer a soft touch on their travels – despite stretching their Premiership away drought to 23 games with defeat at Liverpool. Two goals inside the final 10 minutes from substitute Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard consigned Fulham to a 2-0 loss.
But though Fulham haven’t won in the Premiership away from Craven Cottage since a 2-1 win at Newcastle in September 2006, manager Sanchez claimed that an end to that miserable run is in sight if his team continue to perform as they did at Anfield.
Sanchez said: “We went to Arsenal on the opening day and were leading with six minutes to go and we also got a point at Chelsea when we might have got three in the final few minutes.
“We’ve now come to Liverpool and gone until the last 10 minutes before we conceded the goal, so the days of us going to somewhere like Anfield and getting done like Derby did and Besiktas did, who suffered really heavy defeats, are gone.
“This is the first stage, but the important thing for us is beating the teams around us away from home – -not the Liverpools, Manchester Uniteds and Arsenals of this world.
“But perhaps in the not-too-distant future we can perform well on the day and maybe nick the result.”
Fulham’s next three away games see them at Manchester United, Everton and Tottenham, and Sanchez admits that tackling the big guns on their own turf is a demanding experience.
He said: “Coming to places like Liverpool is very difficult for clubs our size because it is a massive club with a huge amount of talent on the bench. They are a long, long way from where we are at this moment, so we had to fight extra hard to stay in the game.
“We restricted them to long-range efforts, but then Torres finds himself in the box and he does what he does. He finishes.”
