Fulham manager Mark Hughes insists he side won’t man the barricades against Arsenal this weekend despite their lowly league position.
The Welshman is ready to go on the front foot at the Emirates as the Whites seek their first away league win at Arsenal in the club’s history.
“We feel that we have strengths that we intend to play to because if you don’t do that then you have got no chance. We have things that can do as a group that will cause Arsenal problems but I don’t really want to flag those up because they might be reading this,” he said.
“We always look at opposing teams weaknesses and Arsenal will be no different. There are things in the way they play that give us encouragement and we try to emphasise that to the team leading up to the game.”
Hughes cut a sorry figure after suffering a 4-1 defeat to his former employers Manchester City two weeks ago but he believes that Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Birmingham was a step in the right direction.
He added: “I think it was a good performance and we totally dominated the second half especially in terms of chances created. The possession stats were something like 60-40 in our favour but as I have said before we lacked that cutting edge.”
“We got caught in by a good break and had chances to correct the errors made but failed to take them. we created chances but couldn’t get the full three points but performance wise it was decent.”
Fulham have been sucked into the relegation dogfight thanks largely to a number of injuries effecting their selection of strikers. Bobby Zamora suffered a broken leg earlier in the season, Andy Johnson has had a catalogue of problems hindering his form and most recently Mousa Dembele was crocked on international duty with Belgium.
But Hughes is confident that his fine record against Wenger will stand him in good stead for the weekend.
“It’s horses for courses and you work with the players that you have at any given time and what you feel can affect Arsenal’s way of playing,” he said.
“Over the years I think I have done pretty well against them and I have caused them problems, cost them points and won in cup competitions and hopefully that will be the case at the weekend.”
