Roy Hodgson saw enough in Fulham's 2-1 defeat to Chelsea to convince him they can survive this season.

Danny Murphy fired Fulham ahead with a 10th-minute penalty awarded after Joe Cole had tripped Moritz Volz as he skipped into the box.

Chelsea came alive after the interval with two goals in eight minutes, the first a Salomon Kalou header set up by Alex's astute nod across the face of goal.

Michael Ballack struck the decisive blow with the game's second penalty after Clint Dempsey had tugged the German midfielder's shirt.

He said: "This is my first game and I though the attitude and desire of the players to give their best was very good.

"You won't hear from me that the team is not good enough to stay up.

"We know we have a lot of work to do and we know that work must begin on the training field.

"Nothing I saw today changed anything. The scale of the task I had envisaged hasn't changed.

"I didn't come here naively and wasn't appointed naively. As a result we must get on and do what needs to be done.

"If there are players available in the transfer window that we think would make us better now and in the longer term then we would be interested."