While acknowledging that the Everton win will no doubt provide Fulham with a boost, Fulham Head Coach Scott Parker insists that a lack of faith has never been an issue in his ranks.
“It brings a massive belief,” he said of Sunday’s Goodison Park victory. “[But] I always felt, and I still feel, that belief was never an issue in that sense, because there was a lot of football to be played and we’ve been very, very competitive.
“The other night, was there a big difference in performance? Not really. Granted, I thought we played very, very well, but we’ve played very well over the last run of 14 games.
“We’ve had four defeats out of that, and those four defeats came against the top four in the division. We’ve been very, very competitive, we’ve played very, very good football.
“We’ve been a little bit short, which I think we’ve all recognised, in terms of that final detail and not being on the right side of that. We were the right side of that at the weekend and we won the game.
“But it’s fair to say belief, confidence, is there. You don’t perform like we’ve performed if confidence isn’t there, and there’s still a lot of football to be played.
“We now have a massive week of games ahead of us, we go to Burnley on Wednesday, Sheffield United [at home] at the weekend, and then Crystal Palace [the following week].
“Like I keep saying, we know what we need to do, we need to win football matches, and we’re at that point where we’re going into another big week, and there’s a big 16 games ahead of us.”
Victory at Turf Moor would move us to within five points of Sean Dyche’s side, but Parker is aware of the challenge posed by a team who have already won seven Premier League matches this season.
“It’s a really tough game,” he admitted. “We understand that. What Sean’s done there over a period of time has been remarkable.
“They go into the game with a couple of injures that they’ve picked up. I think Ben Mee won’t be available due to concussion, [Erik] Pieters came off [in their last fixture], so I think at this time of the year we’re all struggling a little bit in terms of the games and where we are.
“Like always, it’s a massive game for us ahead. We understand the problems that Burnley are going to cause us, and we need to be prepared for it.”