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Football

Roy Hodgson bemoans Fulham's injury crisis

24 Aug 2009


Roy Hodgson is already counting the cost of Fulham's Europa League adventure as he prepares for their return leg against Amkar Perm in Russia with more injury doubts.

Hodgson lost influential striker Andrew Johnson with a dislocated shoulder in the 3-1 first leg victory at Craven Cottage but after their 2-0 defeat to Chelsea on Sunday, Hodgson has more problems.

Captain Danny Murphy limped off after a collision with Chelsea centre-half Ricardo Carvalho and is now a doubt for the return leg against the Russians.

"Carvalho's foot caught Danny on the calf and it was stiffening up so he had no chance of carrying on," said Hodgson. "It is much too early to say if Murphy will be fit in time.

"We knew being in Europe would cause us a degree of problems. There are a number of other players nursing knocks as well so it will test the depth of the squad out to the ultimate degree.

"But we will try and do the best we can. We have a two-goal cushion to play on and we have to try and make certain we give a better performance than we did against Chelsea."

Hodgson's side were outclassed by a Chelsea side that dominated from the start. A goal in each half from Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka put their west London neighbours to the sword.

"I thought our energy levels were low," said Hodgson. "We kept them at bay for long periods by keeping a decent shape. But we never got close enough to disturb them as much as we would have liked to have done. In the end we lost and deservedly so.

"Looking at this game over 90 minutes I thought Chelsea deserved to win it. They have the technique and pace to cause problems for the opposition and they caused problems for us and we lost the game.

"They didn't pepper our goal with shots but they had control of the game after half-time and we didn't have enough in our locker."

Chelsea coach Carlo Ancelotti continued to tinker with his first-team line-up but it made no difference to the overall quality as the Blues made it three wins out of three.

The Italian coach is determined to keep on making changes when he feels players need to rest. He left out Deco, Michael Essien, Carvalho and Salomon Kalou from his starting side but it did not disrupt the system at all.

"It is a great start," said Ancelotti. "We wanted to do this. It is a good moment for the team. We have to maintain this now.

"Deco was out, Essien was out for this game, it was a good line-up but because Essien had played all the games so far, I wanted to give him a rest. He will play the next game. We have to follow this line."

Drogba and Anelka worked so well together in attack that Fulham had no answer and their partnership worked superbly as both players created a goal for each other.

"Nicolas is a very complete striker he can play in the centre and on the right and left, he can play behind the striker.

"Our idea was for Nicolas to stay a little bit behind Didier. In the first half he played a little bit on the right and our play was not so good, so in the second-half because he took a position more in the centre. They can play together as they have different qualities."

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