Fulham face striker shortfall

Fulham must take on Birmingham City on Saturday amid a striker shortage after Andrew Johnson picked up a hamstring problem.

Mark Hughes is already without first-choice forwards Bobby Zamora and Mousa Dembele, while Johnson, only just back from a 14-month injury lay-off, is now doubtful for the clash at Craven Cottage.

But Hughes is refusing to use his lack of strikers as an excuse.

“We have struggled obviously with injuries to key forward players,” Hughes said.

“We are likely to be without Andy Johnson so that has compounded that situation. But we’ll make the best of it. A lot of teams have injuries.”

“Johnson has a bit of irritation at the bottom of his hamstring. We have to be careful with him obviously because he’s had two back to back games after a long time out so we don’t want to compromise him and we’re erring on the side of safety. Dembele will be another two weeks.”

Hughes, who took over in the off-season, enjoyed a solid start to life at Craven Cottage and stayed unbeaten for his first seven games in charge.

But, since their home defeat to Tottenham on October 16, Fulham’s season has gone sour.

They currently sit one place above the relegation zone, have only won once in six games and are reeling following a 4-1 thrashing by Manchester City last weekend.

But Hughes is confident his side are ready to put a run together and drag themselves away from trouble.

“The league this year is really tight,” Hughes said. “That’s the reason it’s so compact and a couple of back-to-back wins could shoot you right up the table so that’s our intention.”

“Birmingham have had a couple of good results and good performances and they will be on a high in that regard so it’s not an easy game for us but when is there any easy game in the Premier League?”

“We need to get back to the level we have performed at this season this weekend and there’s no reason why we can’t do that. The players now have an opportunity to put a few things right that we have discussed that we didn’t do at City.”

As well as those injuries to Zamora (leg), Dembele (ankle) and Johnson (hamstring), defender Rafik Halliche is still at least a week away because of his thigh injury.