Peter Odemwingie desperate to make amends after red card at Fulham

West Brom forward Peter Odemwingie is desperate to make amends for his red card at Fulham yesterday when he returns from his three-match ban.

The Nigeria international was dismissed in the first-half for kicking out at Fulham defender Sascha Riether as the Baggies slid to their first Barclays Premier League defeat of the season.

The score was 1-0 to Fulham at the time of Odemwingie's misdemeanour after Dimitar Berbatov bagged his first goal for the Cottagers.

The home side then went on to score twice more against 10-men through a Berbatov penalty and a late volley from Steve Sidwell, and Odemwingie will now be looking to make up for his petulant act.

"It made things harder for my team. One man advantage is a big advantage," he told BBC West Midlands. "Hopefully when I come back playing I will compensate my team with some good actions ands contributions to the next win.

"As a team we need to bounce back. We are a united group and I had encouragement from my team-mates to forget about it. I will be more worried if it happened more often than one or two times in my career."

And the 31-year-old former Lokomotiv Moscow striker also insisted he will not let the red mist descend in the future, even if he feels he has been hard done by.

He said: "It is something I will learn and hopefully it won't repeat itself and next time I play in an important game for the club, I hope I remember this even if someone provokes me or not.

"I'll try to keep my cool and not react. I feel it was too harsh. I didn't lead with my studs, I just wanted to foul because I felt there was a foul against me that wasn't noticed when I wasn't far from the linesman.

"That moment happens, it doesn't happen often, but for some reason I lost my temper and I regret it. Now I'm thinking about bouncing back for my team."

Although Berbatov grabbed the headlines with his two-goal home debut young winger Alex Kacaniklic also produced a first-class performance.

The 21-year-old Sweden international teed up Berbatov to open the scoring and was brought down by West Brom full-back Billy Jones to earn Fulham's penalty in first-half injury time and the former Liverpool youngster was pleased with his contribution.

"I'm really happy and it's going really well for me at the moment," he told the club's official website.

"I just want to keep on going and hopefully start more matches. The manager gave me pat on the back and told me to do the same in the next game I play."

Martin Jol's side had not won since their opening day 5-0 victory over Norwich at Craven Cottage and suffered consecutive defeats at Manchester United and West Ham.

Kacaniklic revealed the whole squad were looking forward to returning to club action following a week of World Cup qualifiers in an attempt to pick up a second win of the season.

"It was the perfect result for us on Saturday after a few losses before the international break - to get back to winning ways was really important for us," he said.

"Everyone was really up for the game and we just wanted to get out there and play."

The young winger also praised the immediate impact ex-Manchester United ace Berbatov has had at Craven Cottage.

He said: "It was a really good game and great for Dimitar Berbatov to score his first goals for the club. It was great playing with him and everyone is delighted he's here.

"He must be delighted scoring two goals on his home debut, but it wasn't just the goals - he played so well for us and we linked up well a couple of times."

PA