Fulham have been boosted by the return to fitness of winger Kerim Frei and the teenager is ready to fight for his place.
Frei impressed last season when given the opportunity but has yet to feature in the current campaign after picking up a knock on international duty for Turkey.
Now the 18-year-old is ready to step up his training and he admits he cannot wait to get back into the first team at Craven Cottage.
“Last week on Thursday I started training again,” he said.
“We’ve been making sure that I didn’t come back too fast in case the injury came back.
“We did some little games on Tuesday – three lots of 20 minutes – and everything was fine so hopefully I will be back in the team soon.
“I missed playing football very much, I missed having the ball at my feet and things like that but I’m very happy to be back and I’m looking forward to playing my part in the season ahead.”
With new signings Ashkan Dejagah and Kieran Richardson also edging back to fitness, the Austria-born youngster knows he must work hard to earn a chance.
“It’s always good to have competition for places,” Frei said.
“It makes you work harder as you always want to be the best. But just one person can play in each position so you obviously have to work hard and try your best and never give up at all.”
Fulham have three wins and three defeats from their six games so far this season and were beaten last time out at home to Premier League champions Manchester City.
But it is the 2-1 win in their last away game at Wigan that Frei is anxious for the team to repeat when they travel to face newly-promoted Southampton at the weekend.
He added: “It’d be nice to get a second consecutive away victory on Sunday. I think if you want to be in the top 10 in the league then you need to regularly get three points away from home.
“I think we’ve got the quality to beat Southampton – we’ve got great players and I think we’ll be able to do it.
“I think we’ve played some great football so far and our mentality in the team is very good.
“Everyone fights for each other so that’s the main thing – that everyone in the team helps each other.”
