FULHAM assistant boss Steve Kean last night warned the Cottagers had to set realistic targets to get back on track after a poor start to their season.

The Scot and manager Chris Coleman had set their sights on eight points from their first four Premiership games but went into the World Cup qualifying break with just a win and draw under their belts.

Fulham produced a powerful performance in the 2-0 victory over Bolton but defeats by Boro and Portsmouth have left them with some catching up to do.

Kean said: 'We're down on our target for the month. We would have liked at least eight points on the board.

'It's disappointing but we've got to go on and set realistic targets for the next month knowing we're four points off our target.

'It's not as easy as just saying, 'let's go and win the next three games and get back on target'.

'You've got to be realistic, it might take us four or five games before we can get back on track.

'Having said that, we're only three points down on what we had this time last year so there's no need to panic, we're just a notch under where we feel we should be.'

Coleman recruited heavily over the summer with Andy Cole, Tomasz Radzinski, Papa Bouba Diop, Billy McKinlay and Claus Jensen all arriving at Craven Cottage.

Scot McKinlay is the only new arrival yet to win a start for Fulham and Kean admits the introduction of four fresh faces to the starting line-uphas caused inevitable problems.

'You have to play to the strengths of players you have available.

'Having said that it's hard to get all the new players to gel quickly. You can work on it in pre-season but as soon as you get into a competitive match situation it becomes harder.

'We showed good signs against Portsmouth and people are starting to understand each other's runs. Certainly Claus Jensen is becoming more familiar with what kind of movements Coley and Tomasz are going to make,for example.'