Fulham boss Roy Hodgson has explained the signing of veteran Inter Milan midfielder Olivier Dacourt.

"We vitally needed another central midfield player to give us the number of players you need in that position to get through a season," Hodgson told fulhamfc.com. "We're very lucky to have got someone of Dacourt's quality.

"People know him well from his time in England but since then he's had a very successful spell in Italy, first with Roma where he won the Championship and recently with Inter where he's won three successive Championships. He's been injured and that's why, to some extent, we were lucky enough to get him because during his injury Inter have taken in other players and he's not been able to break back into the team.

"He's a very fit person and all he needs is games to come up to pace and I'm sure that he'll get those games. He knows that he's good enough to play in this league; he knows he's good enough to play for us.

"He is 34 but some people can be quite old as players when they get into their late twenties. Brian McBride was 36 last year while he was playing for us and I never ever thought watching him play, 'this is a 36-year-old out there'. He could just as easily have been 20 as far as I'm concerned. So I didn't have any fears about Olivier Dacourt's age."