But why? Everybody knows that teams who keep their shape are harder to break down; why and how are Fulham better at doing it than other sides? There is, sadly, no easy solution; it's all down to hard work. "We work on it every day," said Davies. "Every day in training is geared towards team shape. I've been working with the manager three seasons now and every day is team shape, and it shows."

A faint smile suggests the work isn't necessarily particularly interesting. "We have a little laugh about it now and again," Davies said, "but when he [Hodgson] came in we were fighting relegation and now we're in the Europa League so you take it. If you're going to play for him you've got to put a shift in and perform, work to a system and be tight defensively."

So what is it exactly that they work on? "I don't want to give any secrets away," Davies said, "but he gets the 11 that he wants and he drills everything in that he wants. We've got the ball – it's never unopposed. It's certain drills defensive, certain drills attacking and we work very hard at it. There's no diagrams, it's just all on the pitch. We do a lot of work after every game on analysis, sorting the bad things out, sorting the good things out. It's nice to know what you work hard on works so well. It's just working on little things now and hoping we can still get better."

As my readers will know, this backs up what Mark Schwarzer said in my interview with the Fulham goalkeeper last season. “Hodgson is...a good trainer. He spends probably 95% of the time plus on the training field doing 95% of the training sessions and for me that's probably one of the highest percentage rates I've ever seen a manager be so involved with the team.”

The team's success is constructed around sound defense, something which all football managers know cannot exist without a top goalkeeper. “We've defended very well...if you don't concede a goal, you have a good chance of at least getting a point if not winning the game. That's been the mindset from the beginning,” says Schwarzer.