Hodgson ready to spend big to get Cottagers out of trouble

FULHAM will spend their way out of trouble with chairman Mohamed Al Fayed undeterred by the prospect of paying large sums for the right players.

New boss Roy Hodgson insists the Cottagers chief is prepared to dip into his personal fortune to recruit the reinforcements needed to survive in the Premier League.

And Hodgson claims “persuasive” Harrods owner Al Fayed will pay what it takes to keep Fulham out of the Coca-Cola Championship.

“The chairman is very supportive. He wants the club to stay in the Premiership,” he said.

“He’s spent a lot of money already and one can’t be expected to spend limitless sums of money on a football club, even if they are wealthy.

“But Mr Al Fayed has spent the money because of his love of the club and he will do so again.

“We’re trying to be reasonably realistic in setting our targets for the transfer window. I’m sure that if we succeed in being able to attract those targets, the chairman won’t stand in the way of getting them.

“He will not be saying ‘it’s a good idea to sign that player, but I’m not making the funds available’. The chairman is anxious that we do as much as we can to put things right.

“We don’t have a limitation in that we can only spend a certain amount of money or sign a certain number of players. It’s up to our judgement.”

Nationality is not an issue for Hodgson — his predecessor Lawrie Sanchez insisted on signing British players or overseas imports with experience of English football — but height will be a telling factor.

“The imbalance in the team comes from the lack of size. A lot of our players are of a similar size and not very big, so stature will be a factor for us,” he said.

“But if we are to buy new players they must be quality who will make us a better team, not just make us bigger.”