Fulham 1 Stoke 0

The Europa League, despite what our thoughts on qualification for it may be, is very much a distinct possibility still after a narrow 1-0 victory over a plucky Stoke City side.

But, the relative small squad size Roy Hodgson has to operate with could, despite us sitting in seventh place, be our undoing.

Today we lost both our first choice strikers to injury with Bobby Zamora limping off after only nineteen minutes to be replaced by Erik Nevland.

To compound matters Andrew Johnson had to retire on thirty-three minutes to be replaced by Diomansy Kamara.

The first of the substitutes, Erik Nevland, was to have quite an eventful afternoon.

Only ten minutes after his introduction he was to score the only goal of the game.

Stoke were pushing up and Fulham launched a quick counter-attack. When the ball was fed to Andrew Johnson he did superbly well in holding it up until Erik Nevland was in the right place to slot home past Sorensen in the Stoke goal.

The best the home side could muster was a shot from Lawrence that whistled inches wide of Mark Schwarzer`s post.

As for Nevland, he was to feature in an incident that will have ramifications for Pugh.

Completely unaware that Pugh was lurking close to him the Norwegian deposited his boot straight into Pugh`s mouth, the unfortunate recipient will no doubt be visiting a dentist come Monday for some major dental work.

All in all, not he best game I`ve seen this season but I`ll not argue at the three points taken.

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