Roy Hodgson’s eschewing any euphoria and focussing his players’ minds on Fulham’s next run of fixtures after their win over Liverpool on Saturday.
Hodgson’s side heaped more pressure on Rafa Benitez with a sensational performance at Craven Cottage but the canny manager isn’t even close to getting carried away.
All the time I’m preaching modesty and humility. The injury list which had four players on it before the Liverpool game has now grown to six or seven players. For a club like ours, that’s a lot of players to have out injured.
To get a point in Rome would be a wonderful result. But as I’ve said all along, where points hurt me, through not getting them, is in the Premier League.
We’ll do the best job we can in Rome. We were unlucky to concede an equaliser with the last kick of the game at Craven Cottage two weeks ago, having had Stephen Kelly unjustly sent off. So we’ve shown we can give them a good game. But I would be very disappointed if a point against Roma led us to playing very badly and losing at Wigan.
Hodgson’s been managing expectations at the Cottage all season after last year’s seventh place finish.
I wouldn’t say it is impossible to do that because nothing is impossible. But our major focus, and our major goal, is consolidation and making sure that every year we are closer to the middle of the table than the bottom.
