Fulham leave Jol close to despair

Martin Jol has admitted he can do little to shake up a Fulham squad in freefall ahead of today’s trip to West Brom.

Jol takes the Cottagers to the club where he once starred as a player in the midst of the worst runs of his managerial career.

But his hopes of turning around a sequence of one win from 12 are being constrained by injuries to key men, leaving him without a great deal of room for manoeuvre ahead of tomorrow’s match.

“We have to pick ourselves up and there’s not a situation where we can change the team in five or six positions,” said Jol, whose side have dropped to within four points of the drop zone.

“And that means that a lot of players in my team have to play again and they’ve played a lot of games.

“There’s a little bit of tiredness.”

Jol did make six changes for Saturday’s defeat to Swansea but one of those was bringing back the fit-again Bryan Ruiz and another was forced by an injury to goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer.

The loss of Schwarzer was particularly calamitous, with understudy David Stockdale effectively sealing his side’s fate with errors for both the visitors’ goals.

Jol was hopeful Schwarzer would recover from a neck injury in time for today’s match but was less certain on the fitness of Damien Duff, who appears to have been missed badly over the festive period.

Ashkan Dejagah, who signed from Wolfsburg this season, was tasked with filling the void but has so far failed to do so.

“Ashkan Dejagah has been in and out,” Jol said.

“He didn’t play all the games at VfL Wolfsburg so hopefully Damien will be back to unload him a bit because there are a few players who have had to play all the games and that’s not ideal.

Mladen Petric and Mahamadou Diarra are close to returning but not in time for today.

“If Mladen Petric had been fit then I probably could have played with him,” Jol said.

Meanwhile Goalkeeper Ben Foster has challenged West Brom to replicate their form during the first half of the season.

The Baggies are lying in seventh spot in the Barclays Premier League after collecting 33 points from the opening 20 matches.

But Foster insists head coach Steve Clarke will make sure there is no easing back even though a top-flight spot for another campaign is already virtually assured.

He said: “The gaffer is very big on not resting on our laurels. I know we’ve got 33 points and we probably look safe for the season – but that’s not what we’re aiming to do.

“We’re trying to replicate the first half of the season and, if we can do something like that, you never know what can happen.”