Tom Cairney admits he's hoping that he will wake up one morning and the knee injury that has plagued him all season will have disappeared, but for now it's all about managing the injury.

The Fulham skipper has been plagued by the knee injury since pre-season and has been missing since the 2-0 victory over Ipswich, but made his return to the first team as a half time sub on Saturday afternoon.

Although the Whites came back from a two-goal deficit, Cairney very much looked like he was still in second gear with that knee injury still causing him some problems throughout the 45 minutes he played against Preston.

Cairney isn't worried about the injury long-term, but is frustrated with the injury after having the season of his life last term when Fulham reached the play-offs and he wants to be able to kick on and pick up where he left off.

He said: “It’s a strange one, it’s like a constant pain that I can’t get rid of but we’re working really hard behind the scenes and off the pitch trying to sort it out, but it’s difficult.

“I’m not worried about long term, I think once it goes it’ll go but as you know I’ve been off the pitch a lot this season and it’s just been so frustrating and I just want to get it right like I did last year.

“Maybe it wasn’t in his plans [to come on] but we were 2-0 down and I think he wanted to get the extra man in midfield because it was man for man and I think you could tell they didn’t know what to do in the first 15 when we changed it and we got some more momentum and the crowd got up and that changed the game.

“I’m just hoping one day I’ll wake up soon and it’ll be gone - it’s been very frustrating since pre-season and as everyone knows I tried to play with it at the start and it was difficult.

“My last game was against Ipswich, which I played well but there was a couple of days after where I was really struggling so we’ll see how I feel after this and take it from there.

“After last season I just wanted to kick on again and that’s why its been so frustrating and difficult from watching the game up there and on the sideline today but there’s no feeling like getting out there today, with a bad knee or not."

Cairney has found that he has had a lot of time to himself while recovering from his knee injury, and the stuff the Fulham captain has been doing in his recovery periods may not be as high tech as you may think.

He added: “I’ve been just watching box sets at home with frozen peas on my knees, that’s about as high tech as it gets.

“All I’ve done is this week in the last six weeks, my fitness levels aren’t where they should be but I’ve tried to watch what I eat when I’m injured and worked really hard and a bit of last week and I was well enough to play 45.

“I feel quite tired now but I've got a lot of adrenaline now after a last minute equaliser."