Chris Baird was ecstatic after breaking his goalscoring duck with a brilliant brace in Fulham’s 2-0 win at Stoke.

I’m delighted, my first goals for Fulham. The first one I couldn’t have hit any better.

The second one I knew I was going to take right from the start as soon as we got the free kick, thankfully it went in for me. The second one I knew I was going to take right from the start as soon as we got the free kick, thankfully it went in for me.

The Northern Ireland international conceded that the last couple of days after a demoralising defeat by West Ham had been difficult and praised his team-mates for producing such a solid defensive performance.

It’s been a tough time for us of late, we’ve not kept many clean sheets in the past few games but [we’re] delighted especially coming here to Stoke where you’re always going to be under a lot of pressure, they’re a good team. I thought we dealt with it unbelievably well and we’re just glad to get a clean sheet and three points.

When you drop into the bottom three it’s not nice but thankfully today we got the three points. Hopefully it will lift us out of the bottom three and we can get a good run together and stay out of there.