Confident: Fulham boss Roy Hodgson
With a nod to his team’s 27-hour journey to Hamburg and
their 57th game of the season, Fulham boss Roy Hodgson was
delighted with the 0-0 draw in their Europa League semi-final first
leg with Hamburg.
He said: ‘We must be very happy. We played against a good team
and the journey was not the best.
'It handed us a ready-made excuse not to play as we can and I am
delighted we did not do that.
‘We have given ourselves a tremendous chance but if we are to
progress we will have to play well and win the game. We are not
asking for a miracle but a great home performance.’
'It would be worse than dangerous, it would be downright
foolish,' he added when asked if he thought victory had already
been achieved. 'We are at half-time, and we have to play another 90
minute half.
'Not many people leave stadiums at half-time, or go for a cup of
tea thinking the game has been won.
'There is a lot of football to be played and Hamburg are a very
good team. If they score a goal next week the advantage passes to
them.
'The tie is open but I am delighted about that because it is
very easy to put yourself out of contention.'
The only sour note for Hodgson was the sight of Bobby Zamora
limping towards the dug-out after 52 minutes after a recurrence of
an achilles tendon problem.
Hodgson said: ‘He has had this problem for some time. He has
missed one or two league games but he felt okay and we hope he
would get through the game.
'But even in the first half he was struggling with it. The
medical staff gave him the all-clear to start the second half but
they warned me I might have to take him off.
Up for grabs: Fulham produced an excellent
defensive display in Hamburg
'We have one week to deal with the problem. It is not a
fresh injury so we hope a week gives us the chance to put it right
because I would say he has no chance of being fit to face Everton
on Sunday.'
Fulham skipper Danny Murphy said: ‘We had a reasonably
comfortable night and have put ourselves in a great position. We
knew we had to be organised and we knew we’d have chances on the
break. It was a job well done.’
Murphy’s words were echoed by goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer, who was
required to pull off a smart stop at the death to deny substitute
Mladen Petric.
‘They only had a few chances really but they were coming at us
towards the end,’ said Schwarzer.
