We didn't deserve the ovation after Birmingham win - concerned Fulham boss Roy knows Championship remains a real risk

If Fulham are relegated on Sunday, his sober sense of perspective will be sadly missed from next season's top flight. If they win at Portsmouth and complete their escape from trouble, don't expect him to go wild.

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"I won't need to celebrate," said Hodgson. "If we win and stay in the Premier League it would bring me such satisfaction that I would quite happily go home and have a glass of water and read my book.

"I've lost all my Donleavy books but I found a copy of "Schultz" in an antiques shop in Brighton recently. So I'm reading it for about the tenth time. The last time was about ten years ago, so it's still quite new."

What was that? Did he mean Don Revie? No, Hodgson has not been winding down with a compendium of tactics by the former Leeds and England boss but a JP Donleavy novel about the riotous antics of an American theatrical producer on the loose in London.

"I like to read before I go to bed at night but it makes me laugh, so my wife is never too happy about it," added the Fulham boss, conjuring mental images of him browsing dusty second-hand bookstores and chuckling away in his pyjamas on the night before a big game.

Hodgson does, of course, understand the importance of Sunday's trip to Pompey. The reaction by Fulham supporters to last weekend's win against Birmingham stressed that point. They were ecstatic, cheering the players as they embarked around Craven Cottage on what Hodgson was reluctant to call a lap of honour.

"They're your words not mine," he laughed. "Lap of honour might be a bit strong. But it was magnificent of the fans to stay behind and give us that reception to make us feel good.

"I don't think we deserved that. The team played well that day but I didn't expect them to be as exuberant as they were. I expected a little more cynicism in their reception but it was genuinely warm-hearted.

"There's still a big risk that we can still go into the Championship but that was a clear manifestation of how important it was to people."

Hodgson knows relegation will cost his club of £35million of Premier League TV money. It may also cost him his job and his last chance to prove himself in the top flight of English football. It is easy to assume this must be the most important 90 minutes of his football life and ignore his years on the continent.

"I can remember a few matches in the past that felt vital at the time," he said. "In 1976, Halmstads went away to IFK Norrkoping, knowing if we won we would be champions of Sweden for the first time in the club's history.

"It was the biggest Cinderella story Sweden had ever experienced because the year before they had avoided relegation on goal difference and lost seven first team players.

"Going to bed the night before the game at the age of 29, it felt like a bloody big game to me. I hadn't won too many championships as a player and my thought then was if I could just get one medal in the trophy cabinet."

Halmstads won 3-0 and Hodgson became a hero. Other games popped into his mind, such as the time Switzerland beat Estonia to qualify for the 1994 World Cup and the UEFA Cup final with Inter Milan.

None of them were worth £35m but Hodgson said: "Your job is to win football matches. Whether that means you gain or lose £35m is not something we can take with us into the match."

The fact is Fulham will stay up if they win at Fratton Park - something Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool all failed to do this season - and confidence is soaring. They have won three of the last four and everyone is fit, even Jari Litmanen, who managed 76 minutes for the reserves this week without a mishap.

"For a long time I was working with players who hadn't experienced those wins," said Hodgson. "They are working all week, doing their best, preparing hard for the game and then they lose and they have to get up and do it all again. You can never underestimate the effect of a couple of wins.

"Can we do it? Of course we can. If we can beat Reading, Man City and Birmingham, we can certailny go and win at Portsmouth. We can. But I don't think we're favourites to win there, I really don't. It will be very, very tough. Harry has had time to put a very good team together. I'm quite jealous of some of the players he's going to put out against us."

Portsmouth's reserves beat Fulham's reserves 1-0 this week and Harry Redknapp chatted with Hodgson on the touchline.

"We had a very polite conversation, skipping the most important thing, what's going to happen on Sunday," said the Fulham manager. "I didn't want to ask too many questions about his team, as it would seem to be the wrong thing to do, and he didn't want to ask too many questions about us."