Clint Dempsey believes Fulham have the strength in depth to improve on last season's eighth-place finish.
American ace reckons Cottagers can enjoy more success this term
Clint Dempsey believes Fulham have the strength in depth to improve on last season's eighth-place finish.
The American midfielder has been an integral part of the Cottagers' success in recent seasons, claiming a best-ever league finish of seventh in 2008/09 before reaching the 2010 Europa League final.
Now the 28-year-old has targeted even more success given the additions Martin Jol has made to the squad this summer.
Dempsey believes the new boss has added flair to the team and he reckons the Dutchman can lead them to bigger and better things this term.
"We want to better what we did last season," he said. "We have a good core group of guys who have been here through the most successful period.
"These last three years have been great. We want to make a good run in the Europa League and see what we can do in the cups.
More depth
"We've got more depth to our team and I think we're going to be a tough team to play against.
"I think we are going to try to play with a little bit more attacking flair, although I thought last year we were pretty good in attack as well.
"But getting the outside backs to push up more forward and take more risks, as long as they're calculated, is going to add to our attack, so hopefully we can continue to score goals and try to keep as many clean sheets as possible.
"We've always been a team that was tough to break down and hopefully we can maintain that but add more goals to the season."
Dempsey was speaking after Thursday night's Europa League third qualifying round clash with RNK Split at Craven Cottage.
After enduring a tough goalless draw in the first leg in Croatia last week, Andrew Johnson and Danny Murphy scored to give the Cottagers a 2-0 win and book a play-off with Ukrainian side FC Dnipro.
Dempsey return
The European game also marked Dempsey's return after a prolonged break due to international duty at the Gold Cup and he insists he is raring to go in the new Premier League campaign.
"I had 24 days, something like that," he said. "Your career is short and you have to make the most of it. It is trying to find the right balance.
"You can't really take too long off because when you take a long period of time off it is difficult to come back, you start picking up injuries.
"It is almost better to stay fit almost all year round. But you do need a bit of a break and I feel I got enough of a break and I'm ready to put in a good season."
