Fulham defender John-Arne Riise is hoping the club can take the positives from their narrow defeat at Manchester United on Monday into their next Premier League match against Norwich City .

Paul Lambert's side currently sit two places higher than Fulham in the table after the Cottagers' 1-0 reversal at Old Trafford saw their losing streak stretch to three matches.

Riise is not allowing himself to get too down-hearted by the recent run of form and told the club's official website he believes improvements were evident for all to see.

'I think after the last two games, Aston Villa where we lost in the last minute and Swansea where we didn't play anywhere near our top level, it was a step forward,' he said. 'We played compact when we needed to against Manchester United but also had some good play and really showed some character, as we always try to do, in fighting until the end so it was a good team performance.'

Fulham boss Martin Jol was upset his side were not awarded a late penalty against the league leaders after Wayne Rooney had opened the scoring in the first half and although Riise was unhappy to lose he felt there were plenty of plus-points from the game.

He said: 'It's always disappointing to lose but at the end of the day not many people actually expected us to get something from the game. But we gave United a scare, we had a few chances, we played quite good football, especially in the first half, and we had a few chances in the second half so we left there with the feeling that we played some good stuff but still gutted that we lost the game because we don't like to lose. It was vital we put in a strong performance against United because, as I said, the last game we played badly at home against Swansea so we really wanted to play a good game on Monday, especially ahead of the game against Norwich.'

Despite their three consecutive defeats Fulham can leapfrog the Canaries with a win on Saturday and Riise is now focused on collecting the three points.

'We want to put things straight on Saturday and we'll be aggressive, be strong and show the fans what we can do again because we know we're good at home,' he said.

Fulham's season started way back in June as they played in the preliminary rounds of the Europa League but after a shaky start to their league campaign they seem to be back on track and have all-but secured their Premier League status.