Fulham - Roy on Success!

As the biggest night of our European journey awaits us, Roy Hodgson is loving being in the limelight.

Some managers might buckle under the expectation of repeating the success we enjoyed last year whereby we finished a record seventh in the Premier League, but not our Roy!

For Roy expectation means something entirely different, as he explains,

"Expectations mean you are having success, when there is no expectation that means no-one believes in you or believes you are capable of doing something."

'I'm not sure that people expecting from you is a negative thing. Obviously one hopes expectations are tempered by the reality of situations and people regard each situation on its merit.'

Everyone get the gist of that?

Continuing, Roy goes on to define what a successful season would be, remarking,

'I suppose a good season for us would be if we can maintain our mid-table position and if we can give a good account of ourselves in the coming match against Shakhtar (Donetsk) and then have a bit of luck in the quarter-final (of the FA Cup) against either Tottenham or Bolton,'

'We have got a lot to play for and some exciting times ahead but maintaining the status quo of what we have done so far would certainly mean, from my point of view, that we have had a good season, considering that recently we have had to deal with a number of injuries to key players."

'We are still being hampered by that and all managers will tell you that losing three or four of your senior first-team players and your better first-team players is not easy to deal with.'

It certainly isn`t, especially when you consider how few injuries we had last season.

But how would Roy classify his Fulham reign? Up there with his finest moments, or somewhere between there to middling, read on….

'It's been very good. I am very happy here and I have been very satisfied with the job and the relative success we have had."

'In terms of my CV, I would regard the work here and the success here to be on a par with a lot of the successes in the past.'

Well we`ve certainly enjoyed having you at Craven Cottage, you`ve brought a smile to many a face and for all the right reasons - producing an attractive football team.

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