Jol to unleash Berbatov on West Brom

Fulham manager Martin Jol has confirmed Dimitar Berbatov will make his first start for the club at home to West Bromwich Albion on Saturday.

Jol also revealed new arrival Giorgos Karagounis could also feature in the match after being named in the squad, but Bryan Ruiz remains a doubt.

“Karagounis will be in the squad but Berbatov will start against West Brom,” Jol told reporters.

“We will do an injury test on Bryan on Saturday, so he’s 50-50 at the moment.

“As for the rest of the squad, (Kieran) Richardson is out with a hip injury, and of course we know about Kerim Frei. (Ashkan) Dejagah was not fit when he joined so hopefully we will get him fit in the next couple of weeks.

“Philippe Senderos is doing well, he came back and trained with us on Friday, but he’s not ready to join us yet. And (Mahamadou) Diarra has a problem with his knee.”

Fulham suffered a disappointing 3-0 defeat to West Ham United in their last league outing and Jol said he was unhappy with his side’s inability to deal with their opponents’ direct tactics.

“I think if you’ve got the experience that we’ve got, then the players can cope with a variety of playing styles as they are used to it,” Jol said.

“We spoke about West Ham’s style and I don’t want to say that it’s a bad style because it’s good to have a style.

“But to watch the game and analyse the game, you see that in the first minute they hit a long ball and got a knock down and we conceded a goal which was exactly what we spoke about.”