Where there is life, there is hope - and Fulham manager Roy Hodgson is clinging to it with an outwardly cheerful dignity at Craven Cottage.And that is some feat when, as Hodgson admits, his team require a minimum of five wins from their remaining 10 matches to stay in the Premier League.
Fulham were comprehensively, and predictably, outplayed as they lost 3-0 at home to champions Manchester United on Saturday and are six points off safety. Hodgson, 60, who has bossed Inter Milan, Switzerland, Finland and Blackburn Rovers has probably already seen all the ups and downs of top football.
And he had no illusions about the size of Fulham's survival task when Mohamed Al Fayed asked him to replace the sacked Lawrie Sanchez just after Christmas.
So far, despite splashing out on a raft of new players in January, Hodgson has overseen just one win in eight games.
Nevertheless, he was cheered by Fulham's spirit and resolve against a United side who, in the end, showed their huge gulf in class between top and bottom despite leaving Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo on the bench.
Owen Hargreaves' superb early free-kick and the poor covering which allowed Park Ji-Sung a free header inside the six-yard box but the game beyond doubt before Simon Davies' late own goal,
Hodgson said: "I thought the third goal was a little cruel on us. Had the second half ended 0-0, it would have been a fairer reflection.
"You saw that Sir Alex Ferguson had the luxury of leaving out household names but you still might say it looked a full-strength team.
"It's a matter of personal opinion. I think Carlos Tevez is a great player like Rooney and Louis Saha, too.
"When you have that depth of squad, it would be unfair to suggest it was a weaker team.
"In all honesty, I thought we stretched them throughout. Unfortunately our quality in the final third was not as good as theirs.
"And it's also about nerves, tension. Where our strikers tend to snatch at shots, their players have the composure to strike the ball better.
"But we won't embrace the idea of relegation until such point as we can't make it ourselves. We have 25-30% of the season left and that's a long part of the season.
"I think the players have shown that they are working very hard to play the type of football we think is going to get us out of it. It will be interesting to see, when we play the teams around us, what the difference in level is then.
"I think we'll need five wins, maybe even more than that but I have to take heart from the fact the players are working hard at it. And if they continue to show the same spirit I can only hope that this will give us results in the longer term."
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