HODGSON CHASES ETUHU DEAL

Etuhu - is wanted by Fulham.

Fulham manager Roy Hodgson will try to strengthen his squad with the signing of Sunderland's Nigerian midfielder Dickson Etuhu despite a proposed swap deal with Northern Ireland striker David Healy breaking down.

In the end Healy joined Sunderland for £2million but Hodgson - who saw his team narrowly avoid humiliation in the Carling Cup with a 3-2 home win over League One Leicester on Wednesday night - said: "We are still working on that deal.

"Although we've signed a lot of players this summer we've still got only a 21-man squad really - and we'll lose a lot of that to the internationals next week.

"We've not got players who play for England but so many who go all around the world when these international weeks come up. It takes a lot away from our training and preparation."

Fulham are not in action again until September 13, at home to Bolton, but might want it to come quicker after almost embarrassing themselves against the relegated Foxes at Craven Cottage.

Four days after beating Arsenal they led just after the half-hour mark through Hungarian Zoltan Gera's deflected strike but fell behind as rampant Leicester struck twice in four minutes right after the interval.

Ex-Gunner Paul Dickov, 35, equalised and midfielder Andy King curled a beauty beyond goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer.

A full-strength Fulham looked dead and buried until Jimmy Bullard's wonder strike from 20 yards into the top left-hand corner seven minutes from the end.

Then skipper Danny Murphy - whose goal kept Fulham in the Premier League last season - rifled another deflected shot from distance for a stoppage-time winner.

Hodgson admitted: "We know we've got ourselves off the hook but we were not guilty of complacency.

"It's just that we seemed to lose all our rhythm against a team which scored two quick goals and kept coming with their tails up.

"Happily, we refound our rhythm and got two wonderful goals from Jimmy and Danny.

"We learned a lot of lessons without paying the full price. Jimmy's very disappointed with himself after his second-half performance but again he's proved that good players can always come up with something special."

Leicester manager Nigel Pearson said: "Maybe it's an unfair result - and we should have had a penalty in the first half.

"But that's life and I'm not going to moan too much because we gave it a good go against a quality team."