Assistant manager Steve Kean has called on Fulham to secure the club’s Premiership status as quickly as possible.
A poor finish to the campaign could plunge the Cottagers into the relegation fight as there are enough points available for each of Portsmouth, Birmingham and West Brom to overtake them.
But victory over Charlton on Saturday would virtually secure their safety. Kean said: “We want to get the points as soon as we can. We have five games to go and we need to get at least one win.
“We are looking for a strong finish to the season and we have done that in the past. A few years ago we managed to get 10 points out of the last five games when we had been in a worse position.
“The spirit is good in the camp, we have lots of bodies coming back and we are looking forward to this game.”
Charlton will arrive at Craven Cottage with little at stake after their hopes of reaching the FA Cup final were dashed by a 4-2 quarter final replay defeat at Middlesbrough on Wednesday night.
A top-10 finish is now their sole aim and Kean was predicting a typically stubborn performance from the goalless draw specialists.
He said: “With Charlton over the last eight league games they have been hard to score against. I think they have had five clean sheets out of the last eight so they are difficult to break down.
“But we have a good record against Charlton and a good home record overall. Charlton will be coming off the back of a tough game on Wednesday night so we will have had more rest than them having played only 20 minutes last week and not at all in midweek.”
Those 20 minutes were all that were possible at Sunderland last week before foul weather forced the game to be called off, with Fulham leading 1-0.
