Fulham boss playing down Zamora link

Lawrie Sanchez has denied attempting to revive his interest in West Ham striker Bobby Zamora.

Sanchez approached the Hammers during the summer but was told Zamora, whose appearances this season have been limited by a knee injury, was not available.

The Fulham boss is reported to be preparing an improved £4million swoop for the 26-year-old in January, but today he denied a fresh approach had been made.

'There is money still available. Bobby was a player we asked about during the close season and were told no, he said.

'I've seen that we've been linked with several players all of a sudden, I don't know where that's come from because there's nothing we can do right now.

'We wouldn't make our interest known earlier because you look foolish if you don't get the player. It alerts other people, too.'

Fulham have failed to score in their last three matches and are missing influential striker Brian McBride, who is expected to recover from his knee injury in two months.

Sanchez is pleased his side have managed to plug their leaky defence, but admits the shortcomings at the other end of the pitch are proving costly.

'We were scoring goals for fun but then haven't scored in the last three games,' he said. 'We couldn't keep a clean sheet for love nor money, yet two of our last three games have been clean sheets.

'We've got goals in the team, but it's about the players showing this. A lot of the teams near the bottom have been suffering heavy defeats, but our worst loss was 2-0 to Portsmouth. Some teams have more points than us but have suffered from what I call bad defeats.'