Brede Hangeland has urged Fulham to continue their fine run of recent form with a win over Blackburn at Ewood Park on Saturday.
Martin Jol’s side head into the weekend’s game on a four-match unbeaten run which includes wins over Arsenal and Charlton. The Norwegian centre back wants to replicate last season’s improvement in the second half of the season, which saw a previously struggling Fulham side surge to an eighth place finish.
Going into the weekend’s game confidence is high, we have been doing better of late, so we go to Blackburn looking to keep that recent form going. We finished last year well and have started 2012 very positively, so hopefully it will be the same story as last season when we enjoyed a stronger second half.
Changes have been made and, as a result, it has taken us a little while to gel, but there are signs that things are starting to fall into place for us now. We want to put together a strong run, improve our performances and push ourselves up the table.
Hangeland insists Fulham won’t be taking Blackburn for granted. Although Rovers are still in the bottom three and battling against the drop, Steve Kean’s side recorded a memorable win at Old Trafford and picked up a point at Anfield over the festive period.
It doesn’t matter if a team is at the bottom or at the top – in the Premier League every game is competitive. Sure, they [Blackburn] are at the bottom and desperate for points, but because of that it makes for a difficult game.
Looking at the amount of points that we have taken away from the Cottage, Blackburn will probably look at this game as one that they can win. But at the same time, having played well at Chelsea and Norwich recently, we feel that this could be a game in which we can address that form away from home.
As always, it will be a tough challenge, but as I said, we’re confident and know that if we get everything right then we are a hard team to beat. We have a lot of quality and hopefully that quality will shine through on Saturday.
I’ve actually stopped looking at sequences of games now, especially in terms of thinking about the ones that we should win. In my experience, football doesn’t work like that, especially in the Premier League.
There probably weren’t too many that expected us to beat Liverpool and Arsenal at home and get a point at Stamford Bridge recently. Likewise, there have been times when we have lost games that we thought we may win. I suppose that is one of the many things that makes this league so exciting and highlights the strength from top to bottom. We can’t think too much about things like that, we just need to concentrate on our own game and make sure we are the best we can be.
