The Cottagers head into tomorrow's match against West Ham languishing in the lower reaches of the Barclays Premier League having won just two of their opening games.

Greening knows all too well what it feels like to be involved in a relegation scrap having spent three of the last five years fighting for survival with West Brom.

The 30-year-old escaped the drop in his first year at The Hawthorns but was part of the Baggies side that was relegated in 2006. He also suffered relegation last season, when Albion finished rock bottom.

The former Manchester United man admits there is plenty of time for Fulham to climb the table, but would like to see them do it sooner rather than later.

"We need to get going in the league because we are in the bottom half," said Greening.

"When I was at West Brom we were always near the bottom. It's not nice to get sucked down towards the bottom of the league so our main aim is to get out of there as quick as possible because if you get dragged into the bottom four, five, or six, confidence can get low and people start panicking.

"There's no cause for panic but we just want to put in a good performance and get some results and push up the league because we know that the squad we have is capable of getting up the league quickly."

West Brom rejected several transfer bids for Greening before allowing him to join Fulham on a season-long loan in August.

The Scarborough-born midfielder had almost resigned himself to playing Coca-Cola Championship football after playing the first two games of the Baggies' season.

Greening has been used sparingly since his arrival, with Fulham manager Roy Hodgson opting for Danny Murphy and Dickson Etuhu as his main central midfield pairing.

He believes he could have made more of an impact had the agreement been reached earlier and admits he would like to make the move permanent.

"It was going on for about 10 weeks in the end I think so it would have been nice to have come at the start of pre-season and had a full pre-season but it wasn't to be," he said.

"I only came here a week before the start so I have been catching up a bit.

"I do want to stay here, definitely.

"I just have to keep working hard and try to get into the team. I will hopefully get a run of games because everyone needs a few games to get up and running.

Hodgson's options for tomorrow's game are boosted by the return of Etuhu, John Pantsil, Brede Hangeland and Aaron Hughes, all of whom were rested for Thursday's Europa League win over FC Basle.

That win came on the back of an encouraging performance against Arsenal and Greening now believes Fulham can go into the match against Gianfranco Zola's side full of confidence.

"I thought we did quite well against Arsenal and against Basle we put in a strong performance," Greening said. "We had a lot of the ball and kept our shape and we want to take that into the derby at West Ham and get a good result."