Speaking at tonight’s press conference, Roy Hodgson gave a strong hint that he will be making a few changes for Fulham’s first game in the Europa League at CSKA Sofia tomorrow night.
The Fulham manager said some of his new signings have had to be patient as the starting line-up has remained relatively unchanged since the start of the season.
We’ve signed a lot of new players in the summer and they’re champing at the bit to show what they can do in the First Team. They’ve had to wait a long while for their chance because I’ve been quite conservative with my team selection.
We’ve got a long season with many games ahead of us. That, plus the fact that we’re coming off the back on an international week, in which a lot of our players played two matches.
I made the decision fairly early on that, with this being the first game following an international week and a very important game against Everton, this was the right moment to let one or two of the lads, who we’ve not seen too much of, show what they can do. Of course there are also people like Simon Davies who need games.
I fully believe that the team we put out on the field will be a very competitive team. I have great faith in the players and there’s no point in signing players like Jonathan Greening, Bjorn Helge Riise, Zoltan Gera, Erik Nevland, Joe Kamara, Stephen Kelly or Chris Baird of you’re not prepared to use them.
We are very happy to be in this competition, we’re looking forward to it, we think it’s a great adventure but we also think it’s a great adventure for the squad – not just eleven players.
It will be interesting to see how the fringe players, who we haven’t seen so much of yet this season, cope with their evening in the spotlight. Hodgson’s comments suggest that the likes of Greening, Riise, Kamara, Nevland, Baird and Kelly can expect to start in Sofia.
