Brede Hangeland won’t be getting carried away despite Fulham’s fine run of recent form. The Norwegian centre back is still focused on amassing enough points to keep the Cottagers in the top flight and says he hasn’t considered the possibility that the club might compete in the Europa League again next year.
Our goal has been the same all season – to try and get to 40 points. Hopefully we can manage that as soon as possible and collect as many points as we can. We all remember last year when we were close to [the] relegation [zone] around Christmas and then ended up eighth, so it’s all about full steam ahead to the end of the season.
I haven’t thought of that [qualifying for Europe], but on our day I do think that we are a team capable of getting into the top 10 and maybe some more. It’s all about trying to replicate this performance [against Wolves] as many times as possible.
Hangeland also revealed that the language barrier is not proving a problem for in-form Pavel Pogrebnyak, who speaks enough English to get by, and is assisted by Fulham’s multi-lingual squad.
It’s not a problem at all really because many of the lads speak German and he speaks German really well and his English is not bad at all. He speaks more English than he needs to be able to play for us as you might have seen.
I think he understands mostly everything (that is said) and as he gets more confidence on and off the pitch I’m sure he will talk more English as well. He has fitted in well.
The towering centre back hopes the Russian’s free-scoring start continues.
Pavel must be enjoying the games he’s playing with us, so we have to make sure he enjoys it all the time and wants to stay. I’m very happy for him. The goals are one thing but he works so hard and that is what you want to see. When you look at your strikers, you want them to run around like madmen and that is what they did against Wolves, both Pavel and Andy Johnson.
They do look a strong partnership. It is the classic one, a big striker who can hold the ball up well and AJ just running in behind. Pavel has similar traits to Bobby but he does run around a bit more. He has adapted to the style of play here in record time.
