Hughes urges Fulham not to take foot off pedal at home and in Europe

Fulham defender Aaron Hughes says they cannot take the foot off the pedal at home and in Europe.

The Cottagers remain unbeaten in the Premier League since the end of September, while they're still in the hunt for qualification from their Europa League group.

Hughes told fulhamfc.com: “The Europa League is something different – there’s a bit of excitement about it. You don’t get to play in Europe every season and we worked so hard to get there last season. We went to Lithuania and to the other side of Russia in qualifying so that’s a long way to go just to give up on it half way through.

“We’ll go into these next two games and do everything we can to get the results. I think you get a few Champions League teams dropping into the competition for the knockout stages so you could get another couple of big teams and a nice trip somewhere.

“As the Manager has said, our priority is the Premier League but doing as well as we can in the Europa League is good for everybody.

“We’re not getting ahead of ourselves. A lot of teams have spent a lot of money and have improved this year. Every year it gets even more difficult, we probably over-achieved a bit last year. To do it again this year will be even harder but that’s not to say we wouldn’t like to do it but we know, at the end of the day, our priority is staying in the League and anything else is a bonus.”