Roy Hodgson is hopeful Bobby Zamora can shake off an Achilles problem in time for Fulham’s Europa League semi-final second leg against Hamburg (Fulham 6/5, Hamburg 11/5, draw 12/5, 90 Minutes) at Craven Cottage on Thursday.

The Cottagers boss has been keeping a close eye on his 29-year-old 19-goal top scorer after he aggravated the Achilles during last wek’s 0-0 first leg draw in Germany.

Zamora missed Sunday’s 2-1 defeat at Everton, but is now waiting to see if he will be fit enough to face Hamburg in Thursday’s crunch second leg which could see Fulham progress to their first ever European final (Fulham 5/6 To Qualify) and a real chance of silverware (Fulham 3/1 Europa League Outright).

“Bobby is much improved and has done some work today with the physios, but we chose for him not to take part in the light training session we had,” said Hodgson.

“We just have to wait until tomorrow to have a 100% decision on whether or not he can play.

“Obviously we are concerned about the situation, because if he was fully fit, he would have been training for the last couple of days.”

Hodgson added: “When Bobby plays we know what we are doing, and when he does not play, we have people who come in and know what we are doing, so we can leave it late in that respect.

“He will have treatment again tomorrow, then go in front of our medical people, and I think by lunchtime I should know whether or not he has a chance of playing.

“It will be about their assessment, Bobby’s own assessment, how he feels, how he thinks it will go – because knowing him as well as I do, he will not want to let the team down.

“He wants to play, but he wants to play as a fit player rather than play and in any way hamper our chances of doing well.”

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