He started by saying he has every confidence in his Palace XI to handle the task, but made clear that he and the team are expecting a challenging afternoon.
"It’s another very important fixture for us against a team playing very, very well at the moment," Hodgson said. "It’ll be a hard task but I have every confidence the team we’ve chosen will be capable of doing it.
"I’m very impressed [by Fulham]… They’ve shown not only a lot of quality in order to get the results but a lot of character as well. They’re flying high at the moment in terms of confidence and we’ve had to make our players fully aware of that and to make certain we’re not caught cold in any way by the fact their play is going to be a lot better than their table position suggests."
Hodgson was then asked to compare today's clash with the game at Craven Cottage in October 2020, when the south Londoners earned three points in a 2-1 win.
He said: "The season had only really just started then so we didn’t know quite what to expect. Fulham had already had quite a difficult start so we knew we were going there when we were in the ascendancy and they were finding life quite hard back in the Premier League.
"But things have changed enormously since then – now they’re very comfortable. They’re obviously ruing the fact they didn’t take as many points as perhaps they could have done in those opening 10 or so games.
"Certainly recently, in the form table they’d be right at the top of the league. I congratulate them on that – I think Scott and his coaching staff have done very well."