Zoltan Gera has nothing but praise for his old club West Brom - but knows that his love for the Baggies will count for nothing if the Whites end up empty handed at the Hawthorns this weekend.

The Hungarian makes an emotional return, when the pressure will be on again for Fulham after three defeats in a week and a continuation of their away woes.

They have lost their opening three away games up north this season and badly need to put that right.

As Saturday's home defeat by West Ham showed, Roy Hodgson's men should not rely on an unblemished Craven Cottage record to bail them out this year.

"It will be special for me," Gera said of the visit to Albion.

"I had a great four years at West Brom, so I'm looking forward to the game to see friends and old team-mates.

"It's a great club. I am a supporter, but not for this game because I want to win of course.

"I had a good relationship with the fans. I liked them and they liked me, but that time is gone.

"I don't know what will happen now when I play against them. Maybe there will be some boos, but it doesn't matter too much. The important thing for me is that I play well and we do well because we need points."

Mindful of Fulham's sudden dip in results, Gera continued: "If you lose your games in the Premier League, you have a problem and we need to get back to winning quickly.

"We need to learn to win away from home.

"I don't know what the problem is for us, but we haven't been playing too badly.

"It's never easy away from home but we had chances in our last away game at Blackburn. It was just that Paul Robinson made two or three world-class saves and we missed our chances.

"I think we didn't deserve to lose, but maybe we need to improve a bit more."

Gera believes the key to breaking the away duck this season will be keeping concentration levels up for 90 minutes. In each of the three away games so far, including Burnley in the Carling Cup, the Whites have been undone by late goals.

"We have to make sure we don't make any mistakes, even if it is just for one or two minutes because in the Premier League you will lose the game," said the midfielder.

"We need more concentration in the last 5-10 minutes, not just the first 10 minutes. We need to make sure when it's 0-0 that the one point we have away from home is a good point we keep.

"But it won't be easy this week. Fulham are more experienced in the Premier League than West Brom, but they are playing well.

"They are a passing team and have a very good manager in Tony Mowbray. He's an intelligent person and he has good players with him."

Roy Hodgson was pleased with most of Fulham's performance against the Hammers on Saturday, but will want to avoid a repeat of those crazy five minutes before the interval when the Whites shipped two goals against the run of play and had Andy Johnson deservedly sent off for two reckless challenges.

It was a view echoed by Gera. "Today was a bad game for us because I think we played well, but we had a bad two minutes in the first half and although we had chances to equalise in the second half, it wasn't good enough," he said.

"I think we have good character because second half we played with 10 men, scored a goal and created chances, but were a bit unlucky."

Match Summary FULHAM (0) 1 WEST HAM (2) 2 Line-up: Schwarzer; Pantsil, Hughes, Hangeland, Konchesky; Davies, Murphy, Bullard, Gera; Johnson, Zamora. Subs not used: Zuberbühler, Baird, Seol, Nevland, Kallio, Dempsey, Andreasen. Attendance: 23,946 GOALS: Cole (43), Etherington (45), Murphy pen (59).

MoM: Matthew Etherington Entertainment: [2713][2713][2713][274d][274d][274d]

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WEST BROM

Hawthorns Saturday 3pm Premier League

Manager: Tony Mowbray Position last season: 1st Champ Form Guide: Last weekend's 1-0 win at Middlesbrough was Albion's first away from home and should give them a muchneeded shot of confidence as they try to survive their first season back in the top flight.At home they have beaten West Ham (3-2) but been beaten by Everton (1-2) and Aston Villa (1-2). On their travels, they have yet to concede, having lost at Arsenal (0-1) and drawn at Bolton (0-0). They were knocked out of the Carling Cup at Hartlepool (3-1).

Players to look out for: Keeper Scott Carson is rebuilding his reputation after the disastrous goal he conceded for England against Croatia at Wembley last season and seems more settled after ending several seasons of loan spells while at Liverpool.

Most recent meetings: Fulham 6-1 West Brom (11 Feb 2006); West Brom 0-0 Fulham (3 Dec 2005) - PL. Head-to-head record: WBA Wins: 34 FFC Wins: 23 Draws: 15

Match Facts: The Whites have drawn on their last two visits to the Hawthorns and lost 1-0 in their only other Premier League visit. Fulham last won this fixture in the league in 2000 when they won 3-1 on their way to promotion from the Championship. There was an FA Cup win in the Midlands in 2002 during Fulham's charge to the semifinals - Steve Marlet scoring a rare goal that day. The last meeting between the teams ended in Fulham's second best Prem result. Heidar Helguson and Collins John scored twice in a 6-1 win, with Tomasz Radzinski and an own goal making up the total.

Forecast: The Whites will be looking to get back among the points after successive defeats and should be happy to come away with a point.

Gazetteforecast success rate: 3 correct out of 7 (43%)