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Fulham striker Bobby Zamora (front) is held back by Stoke City's Abdoulaye Diagne-Faye during the Premier League match at the Britannia Stadium. Fulham are sweating on the results of a scan on Zamora, who is facing a lay-off of at least several weeks after suffering a serious-looking shoulder injury in the 3-2 defeat at Stoke.

Fulham manager Roy Hodgson is resigned to being without his leading striker for some time after he suffered what was initially thought to be a dislocation of either the collar bone or his shoulder.

"Either way it is a bad injury," said Hodgson, who also saw influential Norwegian centre-back Brede Hangeland forced off at half-time.

"It was a very expensive day for us," Hodgson added. "We were forced to replace Hangeland at half-time with a recurrence of his knee injury and we lost Zamora early in the second half and we have also lost the game."

Zamora has scored 11 goals in all competitions for Fulham this season, including six in his last seven games.

Hodgson added: "Andy Johnson dislocated his collar bone and he made a swift recovery and was back on the field in three weeks.

"Having said that, for the injury to heal fully it takes longer because as a forward you?re always being buffeted around and you can?t protect it as well as you would like."

Stoke seized control of Tuesday's encounter at the Britannia Stadium after Tuncay Sanli had headed them into an early lead and further strikes from Abdoulaye Faye and Mamady Sidibe gave them a commanding three-goal advantage by half-time.

Ireland winger Damien Duff pulled a goal back for Fulham just after the hour mark and a Clint Dempsey strike five minutes from time made things frantic at the end, but Stoke were able to hold out for a win that lifts them to tenth in the table, a place and three points behind their visitors.

"I thought we did well to come out in the second half after conceding those disastrous goals in the first half," Hodgson reflected.

"I didn't think we were particularly out-played in the first half but 3-0 in any league is a very difficult deficit to come back from.

"I thought we gave it our best shot and I just wish the game had gone on for another 10 minutes - who knows, we might have sneaked one in."

Stoke's victory was their first since in the league since November 22 and ended a run of six league matches without a win, in which they had failed to score in all but one.

"I thought it was a very good first-half performance and we could have scored more goals to be honest," said manager Tony Pulis.

"We really pressed them in and got after them and I thought we did really well and looked tight together.

"Fair play to Fulham in the second half, they came out and pushed bodies forward and made it nervous for us."