Interesting comments on the eve of a game from Roy Hodgson. He doesn’t deny that Fulham are still thought of as a fairly insignificant side, despite being in the Premier League and finishing seventh last year. Witness Peter Drury’s rather irritating habit of describing ‘dear old Fulham’ on Thursday night.
Hodgson fully accepts that, although we had the ninth best record away from home last season, teams will still look at us and reckon they should take three points. Wolves might well have Fulham at home down as one of their home bankers for the season. It didn’t take much effort when we last went to Moulineux as I recall.
I’m afraid that at Fulham we have to live with the fact that teams look at us and expect to get three points. When we go to places there aren’t many teams who say, ‘Oh my God, it’s Fulham, there’s nothing in this for us’.
Everywhere we go this year, whether it be Wolves or Arsenal, West Ham or Liverpool, the team we’re playing are going to say, ‘Right, this week it’s Fulham. This is a team we should be beating, this is a team we’re going to win against’.
We’ve got to make sure it doesn’t happen. It doesn’t annoy me, why should it? It will be nice one day if people are scared of us and are worried about getting points but we’re way off from that.
We might need to build a 60,000 stadium on the banks of the river first. Trees don’t grow to heaven.
Roy’s still grounded in the reality. First objective: finish above the relegation line. To some, that might seem unambitious – but we proved last season that once that’s achieved, anything’s possible.
We had a great season last season but we’re starting from scratch again. We’re the same Fulham this season which started last season with one ambition – to get to the end of the season in the Premier League and survive without giving our supporters a heart attack.
We’ve dismissed everything from last season. Our ambition is to stay in the league and the game against Wolves is of vital importance.
Everybody’s expecting another drastically changed Fulham teamsheet after the shadow side held CSKA Sofia to a creditable draw in midweek.
I’ve always got a selection poser but what that performance has done is prove to everyone that I’ve got a selection poser. It’s quite easy to be dismissive of people who aren’t getting a look-in and focus only on the 11 that I pick. But everyone has seen my faith is justified.
Seats, concrete, and structural steel don’t win football matches. Yes it might, in the end, affect games, but look at Fulham’s “peers” like Wigan, Bolton and others with bright, lovely new stadia, which are half empty. I’ll take the lovely old park (which I hope to visit one day.)
Let the other clubs continue to underestimate the Roy Hodgson-lead Fulham, and let them continue to be floored when they come away from a match without points, or with only 1 point. That’s a great blog entry.
Think Hodgson’s playing the game very well here. He’s being honest but he might be making the point to the board that he might need some more finance to take Fulham to the next level.
Fully agree about teams continuing to underestimate us.
As for the ground, if we left Craven Cottage for a site that wasn’t in H&F that would be it for me. Too many people have tried to convince us of the need for bigger, better stadiums when it’s just been an excuse for big bucks. Expansion is possible at CC – so perhaps the club should look into it, as they said they would when we went back.
I love that quote – “Trees don’t grow to Heaven” – brilliantly sums up our status and Roy’s firm grasp on the realities of football management. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, we can still have the ambition to go beyond our expected level we just need to make sure we don’t overstretch ourselves in trying to do so.