Mohamed Al Fayed demands results, but Roy Hodgson believes that he deserves to keep his job as the Fulham manager even if the club are relegated from the Barclays Premier League at the end of the season. Hodgson replaced Lawrie Sanchez in December after Al Fayed, the Fulham chairman, identified him as the right man to keep the club in the top flight. But Fulham are four points away from safety with four matches to play, starting with this afternoon’s game against Liverpool at Craven Cottage.

“I don’t fear for my job,” Hodgson said. “We all know that these days changes in management are fairly common events and I’ll just have to accept it if it happens. But I certainly won’t feel I’ll have deserved it. I think I’ve done a good job. The question about managers’ jobs comes up a lot, it seems to be the only thing people are interested in.” Last season Fulham effectively secured their top-flight status with a 1-0 victory over a weakened Liverpool team in the penultimate match of the season. Twelve months ago Rafael BenÍtez had one eye on the Champions League final; today his priority is the semi-final, first leg against Chelsea on Tuesday.

“BenÍtez must be looking at Chelsea,” Hodgson said. “With Everton losing on Thursday it seems Liverpool’s fourth place in the Premier League is very secure and because of that I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he rests some of the players he believes will be key to Tuesday. But I’m not certain that’s really to our advantage because it might be better to play his strongest team as they might then have Tuesday’s match in their mind.”

One man who still believes that Fulham can beat the odds and beat the drop is Al Fayed. The owner of Harrods was at the club’s training ground yesterday for a morale-boosting visit.