Fulham manager Martin Jol hailed Clint Dempsey as one of the best finishers he had worked with, and was confident the American’s goalscoring exploits would not mean a summer exit from Craven Cottage.

“I think he’s a very important player,” said Jol. “Over the last couple of years he’s been productive. You can play him on the left and he’ll score goals, up front – it’s not his favourite position but on Saturday he did well holding the ball up and again.

“If he gets the delivery he’s one of the best I know.

“Hopefully we will [keep him]. He’s still here for the next season as well. We won’t sell him, so that is easy.”

Jol felt the penalty award was soft, saying: “[At the time] I really thought it was [given against] Danny Murphy, but he touched the ball. Later we saw… it probably isn’t proper English but I think he [Kalou] tripped himself, to be honest.”

On the match overall, he added: “After seeing the game I was satisfied with our fitness, especially the first half – we played ever so well. We did it away from home as well, and got two draws against them. It was the same today.

“The one slightly disappointing thing is that we didn’t create a lot. If we played that well we should create a bit more in front of goal.

“Having said that, we kept the ball well and had some very good spells.”