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| Fulham Assistant Manager Christian Damiano |
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Fulham now stand on 33 points and assistant boss Christian Damiano believes as few as four more points from the Cottagers' remaining 11 league games will clinch a third straight season of top-flight football.
"We're 12 points from the bottom three and the teams down there will be fighting for their positions," he said.
"We're in a position where 37 or 38 points should be enough - so we need two more wins."
Damiano also praised Malbranque, who was involved in the first two goals and scored the third, but admitted he faces a nervous 24 hours before receiving the diagnosis of Alain Goma's apparent hamstring injury which forced him off the field after 45 minutes.
"The most important thing in the game tonight was to score the first goal. We did that and deserved to win," he added.
"Steed Malbranque is progressing game by game. He's got a very good attitude and needs to believe in his quality.
"He has talent and we need him to be aggressive and always stay in the game.
"However, we had a big problem with Alain Goma. He has a muscular problem and we'll have to wait until tomorrow to see the medical staff."
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Baggies boss
Gary Megson |
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West Brom boss Gary Megson has backed the Baggies to beat the drop despite their defensive horror show at Fulham on Wednesday night, when they leaked three goals in four minutes and lost 3-0.
But Megson delivered a vote of confidence in his side.
He said: "I do believe that we will stay up. There are still points to play for and it'll come to a stage when we've got to stop talking and deal with the here-and-now.
"There's no such thing as a must-win game until you know that if you don't win, you can't do anything about your position.
"If it comes down to battling, spirit and enthusiasm, we'll be as good as anybody - but we've got to take chances when they come, which we didn't tonight.
"Tonight was bad defending for five minutes but that's not been the norm this season."
"We had the best chances in the first half and have thrown away our game in hand," he said.
"Our defending had to be seen to be believed. The cross that led to the first goal wasn't dangerous but we decided, for some inexplicable reason, that we'd leave it.
"It was so poor and it changed the game. The second goal was unstoppable then we were all over the place.
"We were at sixes and sevens and the penalty was the correct decision as you can't barge into people."