Brede Hangeland hopes Fulham can use their knowledge of Roy Hodgson’s footballing philosophy to take three points away from the Hawthorns tomorrow.
The Norwegian centre back feels that Fulham are suitably prepared for the challenge of facing West Brom, after spending two and a half years under Hodgson’s command at Craven Cottage.
We can expect to play a team very similar to ourselves a couple of years back. We all know they’re going to be hard to beat, they’ll work really hard and be well organised. So, as always in the Premier League, we expect a tough game but we need points as well so we’ll be looking to put on a good performance and hopefully win.
I suppose Hodgson will know our team as well as we will know his style, so I don’t think any one side will have an advantage in that respect. But it should be an exciting game and even though it’s been a while since he left, we haven’t changed that much, so it should be a good game.
Hangeland admits that he’s been frustrated by Fulham’s slow start in the league but hopes that the side can build on two much-improved recent performances against Manchester City and Chelsea.
I’m disappointed with the number of points we have, but I think some of our performances have been good and we probably should have had a few more points. But, first and foremost, we’re looking to get more points on the board. I seem to remember that we had a lot of draws last year but it worked out well in the end so let’s hope it works out like that again.
This season has been much the same as a couple of years ago when we played in the Europa League. We have some experience in dealing with the fixtures and the manager mixed the team up quite a bit on Wednesday against Chelsea and the boys all played really well.
We have a lot of players who can do a good job and lots of competition for places, which is probably necessary with the number of games we’re playing. So it’s really good to see that players have come in and proved already that they can do a good job.
