Tigana recalls Melville

The Fulham captain, Andy Melville, will be brought in from the cold to shore up the Cottagers' Uefa Cup campaign against Dinamo Zagreb in Croatia tonight.

The Fulham manager, Jean Tigana, has dropped Zat Knight after his error-strewn performance against Southampton on Sunday. The Frenchman will instead call on his 33-year-old captain to team up with Alain Goma in central defence to keep Aston Villa's on-loan striker Bosko Balaban quiet.

His decision to recall Melville for the second-round, first-leg clash at the imposing 36,000-capacity Maksimir stadium in the Croatian capital represents something of a U-turn in his selection policy. "I will go with experience," revealed Tigana, whose team beat Zagreb's big domestic rivals Hajduk Split in the last round. "Zat has made mistakes so will have to come back into the team afterwards.

"His performance against Southampton was not very good. But we have to admit that all young players sometimes make mistakes. What you have to do is excuse the mistakes and work a bit more with him."

Tigana is still without injured trio of Sean Davis, Louis Saha and Facundo Sava, with Saha's hamstring and Sava's calf problems leaving him with few options up front.